Ladle-5/Guidelines

The Fifth Tronic Ladle will be played on Sunday 5th November with the finals at 9pm GMT (US: 5pm EDT, 3pm MDT, 4pm CDT, UK: 10pm BST, DE: 23:00 CEST).

Stage 1
Team-Captains visit the Ladle-5/Challenge Board to establish provisional playoffs.

Again, this is only provisional. Only the Team-Captain is authorised to place your team on the board. S/He may alter this whenever they wish, and this may mean some jostling since placement not only determines who your team goes up against in the first and subsequent rounds, but also which servers you will be playing in. Inform your Team-Captain of your preferences, your favourite servers, and consider ping, stability, and general conditions. The cut off for the provisional placement of teams is 00.00 GMT 5th November. This will allow time for admin to copy out the provisional bracket list, and allows all players to know who they are expected to play and where well before time. The most important thing for players to do is elect a Team-Captain who you can trust, who listens to everyone in the team, who is capable of communicating with other team-captains, and can follow the procedure to the letter on the night. You may also wish to elect a stand-in in-case the Team-Captain can't make it.

Stage 2
Team-Captains register their teams at IRC Armagetron at 7pm gmt and confirm readiness to play.

Before the first round, all Team-Captains should familiarise themselves with IRC using one of the web interfaces such as Joda's web interface or Wrtlprnft's interface or Durka's IRC Applet. Useful instructions include /nick  and /join #arma-ladle. Last minute alterations to brackets should be decided upon, and once confirmed, all players can view the brackets on the wiki at the Challenge Board. Because of the nature of knock-outs, there are often many bye's: these should only occur in the first round, and they can be filled by teams formed at the last moment, eg by pool-players in the IRC chatroom. Team-Captains return to their teams and confirm who they are playing and where.

Stage 3
Teams assemble at the appointed server for their game, and play the best of 3 matches.

The final is at 9pm GMT, Semi's at 8.15pm GMT, Quarter's at 7.30pm GMT, and additional rounds every 45mins before for as many rounds as required. The Challenge Board has the details of who and where players should be assembled, in case there are and problems with IRC chatrooms, or players need to take a leak, etc. Do not listen to random people appearing and changing plans suddenly. Stick to the script -- it has taken a month of preparation to write it... Administration will record results on the brackets as they come in. The brackets should be followed, unless Team-Captains have legitimate reason to alter the course of progress. The only thing to be decided, if there is any question, is the server. When approaching the final, teams will rightly wish to play on servers which favour them. This must ultimately be resolved by the Team-Captains involved.

Stage 4
Winners of the final are celebrated, all participants are congratulated, and feedback is welcomed!

Hurrah! Well done! Feedback is welcome to improve the system for the next time. Reports on game play, video's, etc, also invests more value in the game.

Guidelines
The following guidelines for all players may prove useful:
 * Only Team-captains should alter the provisional play-offs in the Challenge Room.
 * During the event, do not listen to anyone external to your team; rely on your Team-captain for information as to who you are playing and where.
 * Regarding ping, make sure your team-captain is aware of your server preference when s/he enters your team in the Challenge Board.
 * Regarding imbalanced teams... anything less than a full of team of 8 is your problem... an obliging opponent may reduce their numbers if they wish...
 * If opponents don't turn up on time, they forfeit, unless again a team wishes to delay the start... though this causes problems for subsequent timing...
 * Regarding new players turning up: server admins can make their server private, lock it once all players are in, or kick new players immediately

If you wish to discuss any of the stages, add to the guidelines or contribute to the rules, please click on the discussion tab above.