Response to The MARP battles

Personally, I am against the alternate tourney idea. Mainly because I think this whole "random game" thing is not a fair way to determine who wins.

Giving each pair of players a different random game to play could lead to disaterous results. Think about it - how would you feel in the 1st round, having to play against Steve Krogman on Galaga? or Mark Longridge on Joust? Bubble on Bubble Bobble? QT on Discs of Tron? Me on Shock Troopers? etc, etc... I know, these are probably unlikely scenarios, what with MAME supporting over 2000 romsets. But there's always the chance that you're going to have to play against somebody that knows the game a lot better than you, and chances are you're not going to have enough time to learn the game in a few days or a week.

Which brings me to my next objection - the time limit. Yeah, keeping it within a week may "speed things up". But what if a player just doesn't have enough time to get on the computer that week? Maybe he's going on vacation with no access to a computer with MAME, maybe "real-life" things like spouses or working overtime keep him from getting much time on the game, maybe his hard drive crashes. In either case, things beyond the person's control can wreck your chances of doing well in the tournament whether you like it or not. The current tourney format gives two months of play, which is sufficient time for a player to get a chance to play the games... they can work on the games slowly throughout the two months, they can upload everything in the first couple of weeks and then suffer from burnout (like me), etc.

The current tournament system is not perfect. But they utilize a variety of games so it's a better way of determining player skill. The knockout tourney might "seem" more exciting, but when it comes down to it it'll just be luck of the draw. Also, with double-elimination a player can end up only playing two different games before they're eliminated (I'll assume we're not using single-elimination, because that would be extremely retarded, one game you suck at and you're out). With the current tournies, everyone has to play 8 games to qualify no matter what. When you're playing more games, you're more likely to discover a new game that you like (like Ben Jos has with Rastan and now Pnickies apparently, heh)

finally, I'm most opposed to this because it would really wreck my chances of consistently placing 6th :P heh.

-BBH

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