FUN -- all in one day

This fallback option is provided: to play all the games in one night... It is not a round-robin, but a straight knock-out competition. If the event was to occur all in one day, how could this happen?

First, everyone has to agree to meet at a certain time globally. Let's say 9PM sat 15th GMT. They intend to play for the next couple of hours, with a final sometime about 11pm GMT. How could this happen on the day?


 * 1. Players nominate one of their teams to meet with other nominated team-players, lets call them Exemplars since team-captain is a little too closely tied up with traditional ways of organising a team.
 * 2. The exemplars meet in some kind of chat room at a specified time. They have 5 mins to find another team to play against and which server. Perhaps they have arranged this before the day, perhaps not... With teams matched, and servers allocated, the Exemplars return to their teams and mobilise them.
 * 3. The match is played. A winner is determined.
 * 4. The winners send their Exemplars to the same chatroom to notify results, and to organise to play against another winning team.
 * repeat step 3 and 4 until there is one winning team.

'''Instead of this, we can use the results of the seeding round, determine who is playing who and on what servers... see [Oscilloscope's] display for an example:''' [Dead image link deleted; image no longer exists. For reference, it was just a typical single-elimination seeded bracket, with the lowest surviving seed always playing the highest in the subsequent round.]

As it stands, it is just a simple little experiment, to see if we can organise ANYTHING in a couple of hours with minimal fuss. With let's say 8 teams, that means a first round of 4 servers, a second round of 2 servers, and a final server round. Three rounds, each taking about 1/2 hour: the winner to be determined after less than two hours.

Of course, losing teams can either follow how the competition is going, watch as spectators, but will probably want to play against other losing teams to regain some confidence, and while away the hours, or whatever takes their fancy.

One of the central points, is to glean enough from the experience to make the next competition, THE LADLE a little more efficient, avoid some problems encountered, improve team-play potentially, and so on. At the heart of it, it has to be easy, which is the best way pf approaching FUN.

time-zones
By starting at 9pm GMT sat, this gives a reasonable spread across most timezones, with the darkspot across asia. 1pm to 4pm in the US, 9pm to 11pm Europe, and 8am Sunday Australia. If someone comes up with a different spread.

player turn-out
Everyone knows how tricky it is to organise games on the net, with poor player turn-out common. Traditional thinking is that you should give players time to determine games when convenient to themselves. With up to 16 players to accommodate... each game is going to be tricky to organise. Hence this alternative solution... The event is exciting enough for all the players to accommodate the same time-start, after all, it is an unusual event. Nearly all the players who play together on the net at the same time competing for the same prize! Players will go out of their way to make sure they can make it. A singular special event. Like a party! Also, if this is part of the Tronic progression, imagine 1,000 players all in one night -- that's something to tell the girlfriend... and a 1,000,000... tell your grandchildren...

player organisation on the day
The other problem is: can we trust players to organise themselves if they do turn up? Instead of seeding, and a predetermined play-off tree, keep it free and self-organised. Kind of like how proteins combine to form amino acids... self-sorting... If it is simple enough... I don't see why not... And since we are not playing for money, and it is all a laugh... it should be a matter of organising a couple of games, doing the best you can... win or lose... doesn't really matter... if we have a good time... it's fair... I just don't see the problem... Someone please correct me...

the chatroom
I like the idea of using something like Second Life. Otherwise, we need a simple place where all captain-organisers can collect after each match. I can always use my computer as a server to host a game, with the primary purpose of hosting the chat required. It will nominally be called 2020's T-room. If we are following the seeding play-offs, then this should all be determined before the night in question... here presumably on this wiki page, or through the forum...