Topic: Introduction to the tournament

[Søren Bjerg]

First of all, the RUNE HORDES dot INFO Tournaments are attempts at bringing new and different kinds of organized hordewars to the community, offering a variation not yet seen in the tournaments and leagues run in the game so far.

Here's the lowdown on what the first one is going to be like:

Pillaging! Elimination! Conquest!

^CONCEPT

• A currently undefined number of hordes (depending on the interest shown in the tournament as well as the reliability of the hordes wanting to participate) are to battle it out in a Double Elimination tournament scheme, sporting a winning bracket for initially winning hordes and a losing bracket for initially losing hordes. While this has been done before, and is hardly new and different from other tournaments in the community, the following concept is what takes it beyond the established norms.
  
  
• Before the start of the tournament, during the sign up phase, each horde selects a map. This map is going to be the horde's home map, and is unique to the tournament (so one horde and only one horde can have eg. Thorstadt as their home map). The map can be chosen from a range of available game types such as Team Deathmatch, Arena, Headball and Capture The Torch. The hordes can thus choose a map to play in, which favours their preferences in playing the game.
  
  
• Each battle between two hordes is made up by two rounds; one round in the home map, and one round in the away map. The away map being the opponent's home map. In case of intercontinental battles, US players can of course choose to play their home map on a US server, and the EU players can choose to play their home map on a EU server - enhancing the feeling of being home defending your territory or away from home attacking the territory of your opponent.
  
  The winner of the battle and thus the horde to advance in the tournament is logically enough the horde to have won the most rounds (in this case the horde to win both of the rounds in a battle). In case of a tie between the rounds, the winning horde is the horde with the highest cumulative frag count.
  
  
• If a round is lost on a horde's home map, the opponent horde gains ownership of the map. The more away maps won by a horde, the more maps become available to the team to call their home map*. The losing team, on the other hand, may now be without a home map, and is then forced to play a round in a wilderness maps. It can be discussed between the hordes to battle whether the Bleed to Death mutator should be used during rounds played in wilderness maps... for that extra challenge.
  
  * A horde is only allowed ownership of a maximum of two maps at any given time, so if a horde gains ownership of a third map, it has to be decided which of the maps to discard (and effectively make unavailable for the remainder of the tournament). Also, a horde cannot use the same map as their home map twice in a row, if they have control over more than one map - to encourage diversity in the maps used by a given horde.
  
  From a time line point of view, the two rounds in a battle happen simultaneously, so an attacking horde winning over a defending horde can't use the defending horde's home map as their home map when the roles are switched.
  
  
• The grand final is to be played against the winners of the two brackets, where the losing bracket winning horde must win over the winning bracket horde twice to win the entire tournament. The first map to be played in the final is the winning bracket horde's home map. If the losing bracket horde manages to win, the second map to be played is the other map the winning bracket horde has ownership of.
  
  
• For sake of simplicity, the tournament can be run using a Single Elimination scheme. Running the tournament this way eliminates the losing bracket matches and thus the need for wilderness maps.
  
  

^EXECUTION

• The version of the game the tournament is to be played in is RUNE: Halls of Valhalla (preferably 1.08).
  
  
• The servers to play the battles on are to have the following configuration:
  - Game type is Team DeathMatch (clarification).
  - No frag limit.
  - 30 minutes time limit.
  - Weapons stay when picked up, but should not be picked up automatically.
  - 6 open player slots (battles are fought by three of each of the signed up hordes' members).
  - No spectator slots.
  - Hardcore game style.
  - Variable game speed (see below for clarification).
  - Rune usage as per agreement/preference (see clarification for variable game speed for concept).
  - Rune usage is not allowed.
  
  
• Variable game speed: in order to level the playing field, there is to be no set game speed forced upon the hordes throughout the tournament, but instead a variable game speed set per battle and decided prior to battle between the involved hordes. Within the boundaries of minimum 100% and maximum 110% game speed, the hordes can either come to terms with a single game speed to use for their battle, or state each their preference - resulting in a game speed of the average of the two (rounded down in case of decimal results).
  
  As with server selection, EU based hordes can play their home map at 100% game speed, and a US based horde can play their home map at 110% game speed - again to enhance the feeling of being home defending your territory or away from home attacking the territory of your opponent.
  
  
• During the battles fought throughout the tournament it is fully legal to perform chat-, pickup- and spawnkilling. It is war after all, and since the goal of the whole thing is to eliminate your opponents and take control over their earthly possessions, no mercy should be shown.
  
  
• During the battles it is absolutely forbidden to make use of any kind of console hacking, animation abuse, bug exploitation, client- or serverside hacks, cheats and bots of any kind, or whatever else such way there is to get yourself an advantage over your opponents.
  
  Any kind of flooding of the screen with text - harmful in nature or not - either through player based chat messages (binds or not) or trigger based messages (such as Shaman's Talisman in Misbegotten) should not find place during the course of battles either due to its disruptive nature. Likewise should mass suicides (also known as suicide spamming) or excessive use of the suicide command never ever find place while playing the battles.
  
  Players should also refrain from climbing through the ceiling in maps (e.g. Hudson and Misbegotten), picking up a weapon through a wall (e.g. Bothvar) or performing abnormal actions such as slide- or jump pickup.
  
  
• Only standard RUNE skins are to be used, excluding the sark and zombie skins. HoV specific skins are not to be used due to incompatibilities between the English and German versions of the game (players with a German HoV using HoV specific skins become invisible to players with an English HoV - joining a German HoV server with an English HoV using a HoV specific skin isn't possible). No custom skins should be used either.
  
  
• The maps chosen as home maps should be either official or third party maps, which work well in a team oriented environment and have been publicly and easily available for at least three months (for the sake of fairness; so hordes do not end up with newly created/previously secret maps only they know and have used to perfect their team play with -- despite the tournaments general desire to enhance the feeling of "home and away").
  
  During and following the sign up phase, the other opponents having signed up for the tournament are allowed to deny usage of a given map (majority rules - with myself having the final word) should they not feel the map fit for a team oriented environment. If a map is denied usage, it is of course unavailable to any other horde!
  
  However, should a horde wish to utilize a non-listed third party map as their home map, they are welcome to nominate it as their home map, putting themselves at the mercy of other hordes having signed up. It is thus up to them to decide whether the map should be allowed to be used or not. If the horde is denied usage of the map, it is of course not possible for another horde to nominate it for themselves.
  
  
• Battles are to be fought by the players signed up with the horde in the beginning of the tournament - and those players only. Because of this, hordes should make sure only to sign up with reliable members. A minimum of three and a maximum of five members can be signed up, to allow for some in-team substitutions.
  
  
• Failure to comply with these rules will be rewarded by letting your opponent proceed in the tournament - instead of your own horde. This is also the case should your opponent fail to either initiate or respond to communication prior to a fight or to show up at a scheduled time.
  
  

^DEADLINES

• Preliminary Phase: 12th March - 17th March.
  
  
• Sign up Phase: 18th March - 8th April.
  
  
• Confirmation/Final Preparation Phase: 9th April - 15th April.
  
  
• Tournament Phase: 16th April.
  
  
• Dates are subject to change.
  
  

^POSTSCRIPT
While the idea behind the tournament might be sound in theory, I have no idea about how it will work in reality. Regardless of how it works out, it will definitely be a learning experience, and through the result it shall be known whether any future RUNE HORDES dot INFO tournaments should be arranged, when the time is right,... or plain and simply scrapped.

I do hope people will embrace the idea and give it a chance. I'm open to well thought out suggestions.

The concept of RUNE HORDES dot INFO Tournament 2007: Pillaging! Elimination! Conquest! is the intellectual property of Søren Bjerg and should not be plagiarised or otherwise replicated - whether in full or in gist - without written permission.

[LysB]

Uhm i gave up 1/4 the way through thoose rules..

ima read em later but im allways down
make it low cal only could be sweet..

[Søren Bjerg]

Uhm i gave up 1/4 the way through thoose rules.. [...]

I suppose I could cook it down to a digest . I just prefer the verbosity as it's more likely to fend off misconceptions.

[LysB]

It's better to be safe than sorry.. or what ever the smart pl say.

it's always good to have the rules all specified till the last detail i'm jsut a lil to lazy to read through em atm..

[Albas]

Players should also refrain from climbing through the ceiling in maps (e.g. Hudson and Misbegotten), picking up a weapon through a wall (e.g. Bothvar)...

These two rules are going to stop a lot of Americans from wanting to participate, since the ceiling climbing and "through wall pickups" are pretty much standard play in American servers and have been for years.  Not only that, but these actions are very difficult to enforce and often happen unconsciously, and really don't grant that big of an advantage anyways.  I would be much more comfortable signing my clan up for this tournament if that minor rule were changed.  Otherwise, it just opens too many possible cans of worms (us trouncing a euro team and then being disqualified for something one player may have done on accident).  Can you find it in your heart to change this rule, o wise and powerful Soren?

[Albas]

Also, can you spell out exactly how Rune use is going to be handled? 

Or alternatively, you can just answer the following question.

Will each team be able to decide what their own Rune settings will be for their own individual maps?

Reason why I'm asking is your explanation seems a little bit vague on how Runes are supposed to be handled.

[Søren Bjerg]

Players should also refrain from climbing through the ceiling in maps (e.g. Hudson and Misbegotten), picking up a weapon through a wall (e.g. Bothvar)...

These two rules are going to stop a lot of Americans from wanting to participate, since the ceiling climbing and "through wall pickups" are pretty much standard play in American servers and have been for years.  Not only that, but these actions are very difficult to enforce and often happen unconsciously, and really don't grant that big of an advantage anyways.  I would be much more comfortable signing my clan up for this tournament if that minor rule were changed.  Otherwise, it just opens too many possible cans of worms (us trouncing a euro team and then being disqualified for something one player may have done on accident).  Can you find it in your heart to change this rule, o wise and powerful Soren?

I do believe at least the ceiling climbing can be used to grant you a significant advantage; I have many a time missed out of a kill because the opponents exploited a flaw in geometry to climb through the ceiling - effectively removing all threat against them. Also it allows you to swiftly get from point A to point C without dealing with route B and the dangers one may encounter moving along that (I know this may not be so significant in Hudson near Sigurd's Axe, but it's much more so in e.g. Misbegotten by the Broad Sword, with that location also being generally less populated than that of near Sigurd's Axe in Hudson).

But of course, if the majority would want it removed...

[Søren Bjerg]

Also, can you spell out exactly how Rune use is going to be handled? 

Or alternatively, you can just answer the following question.

Will each team be able to decide what their own Rune settings will be for their own individual maps?

Reason why I'm asking is your explanation seems a little bit vague on how Runes are supposed to be handled.

I may simply just ban rune usage within the tournament - for sake of simplicity and to avoid the squabble one could imagine happening with... let's face it... European hordes when going up against American hordes.

But how it would otherwise be working would be that if a horde wanted to use runes on their home map, they could enforce runes to be enabled during the map - if they did not want to honor an opponent's possible desire not to play with runes at all. Again to enhance the feeling of being home or away...

[Albas]

That's fair enough about the runes.  I think it would give us an unfair advantage anyways, since most Europeans don't even practice using runes.  I still disagree with you about picking up weapons through walls and wallclimbing.  The advantage granted is minor and there is no point in going against what the majority of Rune players already do.  I agree with you about jump/slide pickup and I hope the tournament can be run almost entirely on 1.08 servers, but once again, many players are not used to playing Rune without using the wallclimbing or by picking up weapons through walls.

[Albas]

Soren, thank you for making this tournament and listening to my suggestions!   

Looking forward to signing up for this as soon as sign-ups are available.

[Søren Bjerg]

No problem, I saw that I had to suppress some of those pet peeves of mine and not lay down too many restrictions from the "mainstream" way of playing .

[Urlor Jkron]

The winner of the battle and thus the horde to advance in the tournament is logically enough the horde to have won the most rounds (in this case the horde to win both of the rounds in a battle). In case of a tie between the rounds, the winning horde is the horde with the highest cumulative frag count.

This greatly favors TDM over another game type. Previously you encouraged different game types:

The map can be chosen from a range of available game types such as Team Deathmatch, Arena, Headball and Capture The Torch. The hordes can thus choose a map to play in, which favours their preferences in playing the game.

Something should be changed to create a balance between the game types, or limit it to one game type. Perhaps averaging the K/D of each match instead (or points in CTT HB or SB).

[Søren Bjerg]

Or how about the two hordes play a third round with a random game type and map to settle the battle?

[Søren Bjerg]

Ok, here's the deal; to simplify the tournament somewhat, the valid game types of this first one is going to be limited to Team DeathMatch only. Sure this may put a damper on things, as the tournament won't quite be as initially advertised - in terms of freshness and innovation (and other such buzzwords), but depending on how well or bad it goes, further RHI Tournaments may include, exclude or be limited to other game types.

I hope this won't cut off hordes from participating because they had planned on going AR, CTT or HB.

[Virus]

The maps chosen as home maps should be either official or third party maps, which work well in a team oriented environment and have been publicly and easily available for at least three months (for the sake of fairness; so hordes do not end up with newly created/previously secret maps only they know and have used to perfect their team play with -- despite the tournaments general desire to enhance the feeling of "home and away").

Will there be a list of third party maps allowed? To avoid confusion and endless discussions with other clans about map choice.