Announcement: First monthly Edgemenace glitch-free SvS tournament
 

Edgemenace GLITCH-FREE SvS TOURNAMENT!

Date: January 10th, 2009, 7PM PST, 8PM MST, 9PM CST, 10PM EST
New Date: January 10th, 2009, 5PM PST, 6PM MST, 7PM CST, 8PM EST
Duration: 2 hours (plan for 3.25 hours.)
Location: Battira, meeting on Ile d'Etable de Porc at shipwright.
Prize: 10,000 Gold doubloons, transferred at a poker table in Ratskellar to each person on the boat that has the highest score (score, not bounty, combined from both hours of play.)


Rules:

1) Approximately evenly matched sides.
2) No additional participants joining after first 15 minutes. (Please reply here if you plan to attend.)
EDIT: See "contingencies" for how to deal with unwanted launches, after the tournament start.
3) Sailing: no OPEN FIRE, no TAKE COVER. (Broadsides, full sail, come about, ramming speed and leadership only.)
4) Cannon: No grape shot, thunderbolt, explosive or fury. Round shot, chain shot and firebrand only.
5) Base islands are to be considered sanctuary. (No camping on or near enemy base islands.)
6) 10 minutes with no enemy contact: return to home port. When "Drop anchor" is seen, you may proceed back to mid-field to battle.
EDIT: By this, I mean, no hiding. No sailing to world's end and sitting there, during the tournament.
7) Ship repairs to be performed only when AT base island.
EDIT: OK, this rule bites. If all agree, rule #7 will be discarded.
8) The captain of each ship is to be ONLY the person who launched the ship. That captain must have everyone aboard in his or her crew. Boarding permissions may NOT allow friends to board the ship (as they have not read nor understood these rules.)
9) Absolutely no grenades, staff, pistol, etc.
10) No infinite-ammo (aka skeleton glitch.)
11) No "god-mode" glitch.
12) No "blinking" aka pausing game during a full sail or ramming speed.
13) Ship types: any ship type or class welcome. (This may change next month.)
14) No sailing inside islands or rocks.
15) No ventrilo (i.e. no secondary lag allowed as even a possibility.)
16) No glitching whatsoever.


Overview:

The idea here, is to simply have an SvS tournament that every participant can enjoy.

Everyone knows how pervasive glitching is, in SvS. Nobody likes it. Increasingly, glitches are being found to be genuine defects the game simply can't handle. Lag from thunderbolt, explosive and fury (that act as if they stun opponents because of severe server-side lag) serve only to destroy the game. With firebrand causing client-side lag, it too, may be eliminated in future month's tournaments.

High-level pirates may at first be put-off by not having their killer ammo at their disposal. If my theory is correct, they will all find that their "lesser ammos" still do tremendous damage, yet not enough to completely discourage and alienate lower level players. They will find that with many more people enjoying the battle, the strategies and tactics will become more interesting and delightful, as a result.

Participants should have 1GB (EDIT: was 2GB) or more main computer memory. Participants with slow connections should not attend. Pirates that have "Aggressive Memory Conservation" checked in their game options, must not participate.

Please come 5-15 minutes early to the event to facility choosing sides. For the best game-play, 4-8 people should be on each ship. If you have fewer than that, you may be asked to join another crew, or have additional crew assigned to you.

Crew heads (captains) must verify that they can repair before crew members board (if no green circles, they must land and relaunch immediately.) All ships will be launched from Ile d'Etable de Porc, one at a time. (First launched will be French, second will be asked to join the opposition - Spanish, third will be French, fourth will be asked to join the opposition, etc.) Boarding permissions must be set to CREW only; no friends, guild or public.

I will have a "communicator" pirate created for the occasion with an empty friends list. Each crew captain will need one friend slot open, for the event.

After the first hour, we will all take a screen shot of the score, then switch sides (French will be Spanish, Spanish will be French) for the second hour. At the end of the tournament, all will return to their base island but not land, until everyone has pressed F9 to capture the final score.

Adding the first and second hour's scores, a winning ship will be obvious. (If a near-impossible numeric tie occurs, the crew members of both ships will be awarded 10,000 gold each.)

The gold will be disbursed over the next hour, so plan for three hours for the total event. Even the lowliest pirate can end up on the winning ship. (While next-day arrangements might be made, they generally are not practical.)


Contingencies

In the event the game is disrupted by interlopers, both sides will return to their home port, then the interlopers will be attacked en-masse using all available means to repeatedly sink them until they leave. If disrupted for more than 10 minutes, we'll all land then meet at the French shipwright to announce a new (random quiet) server.

Accidentally shooting a shot of grape or fury ammo (etc.) will not be tolerated. It may be best to expend all ammo before the event so that you do not inadvertently use it. (The obvious exception, being the eradication of interlopers...no penalty incurred for using fury then. But it may be wiser to leave that to someone else.)

Captains will all be crew-heads with crew matching on, to allow people to rejoin the proper crew after an all-too-frequent game crash. By communicating with the befriended "Edward Edgemenace," the opposition ship will be asked to stand-down whenever a crew member's game crashes.

Registration

You need to reply here to participate. No other guarantee that you've read the rules will be sufficient.



.

Yes, guilds are welcome to participate, but I will not guarantee that some members will have to cross over to the other side, to maintain balance. I request that guilds participating use privateer chat instead of guild chat (especially when split onto opposite sides.)

For the duration of the event, I request that all participants keep the plus sign turned on for the duration of the event (to maximize the audience.)

I'll try my best to make it, Ed. Not sure yet.

Someone pointed out a typo - I meant 1 GB, not 2 GB. (Don't want to exclude myself from this!)

I had rule #7 in place, as I understood that some people disliked the notion of repairs. On reflection, I can't agree with that. I can agree with the comments I've received via PM (please no PMs - say it here!) that think rule #7 is excessive.

Edited the original post - more comments welcome! And thank you, all. So far, so good...about a half dozen pirates so far are trying to adjust schedules, but this seems like the best middle-ground time, all considered.

For those that can afford only two hours but still win the prize, I won't be heartless in trying to work something out at a later date. But I won't be able to guarantee anything, in that regard.

Ok, so heres a few more for ya (as per your request)

- The Starting Times of 7pm PST - making it 10pm EST (and 11pm my time) - for a three hour event (1 hour each side and 1 hour for winner gold transfer) makes it very late for East Coast Players (1am for EST - 2am for me to finish up cause I'm gonna win hehe ;) )

Should the starting time be moved to 6pm PST or possibly 5pm PST? (making it 9pm EST or 8pm).

- Choosing a "B" Server is kind of like shooting yourself in the foot isn't it? If all the players signing up are legit players via here or word-of-mouth, then a quiet server down the list which would avoid SvS Gliterchers looking to play on "A" and "B" servers could be more avoidable to Glitchers showing up (no SvS'er looks at an "L or M" server for action - usually the "A, B, and the latter servers from S onward")

And yes - I'm still going to try to make it, cause I got a baby pirate that can always use a few bucks :D

I tentatively picked Battira because I never see anyone in SvS there. As the initial furor died down, all SvS (except for occasional guild tournaments) has moved to the crazy A servers. Patros ocean, would be my second choice.

I'm very leery of moving it earlier, as that would conflict for most Pacific-coasters. But if a few more people chime in with the same complaint...

Been thinking about attending with my second lower level pirate. Not positive, though. And I have to agree with Max about the time zone differences. I quit playing the Founders contest because it got too late and I was too tired to continue being EST. But, since I am not positive about attending.........

Thanks to the amazingly generous pirates of the Founder's Guild, the prize will be increased, for an additional 10,000 gold, to be split evenly. It wasn't clear if they meant that as the second place prize, or just a larger first-place winner-takes-all pot...more details to follow as I learn more.

Come get some gold, folks!

The PRIMARY purpose here, is to have fun with this.

My dream with this, is that enough people will play in this tournament and see how offsided "crazy A server" SvS is. With luck, every participant will have so much fun, seeing how SvS was intended to be, that on some servers, the glitch-free atmosphere would become the norm.

But that's my dream. And this is my tournament. Sorry for the confusion introduced there.

The pot remains at 240,000 (or less) gold doubloons...enough for the prize of 10,000 gold doubloons for two war frigates with full crews. All from my personal coffers (several pirates at max, able to sell war frigates as needed.)

Sounds interesting. Unfortunately, I am from the East Coast and by 10PM EST scheduled to work that night. Will this be on Jan 11th as well, but on an earlier time-schedule?

OK, it seems unavoidable now, too many ESTers would miss out.

Moving schedule up two hours.

Old time: Date: January 10th, 2009, 7PM PST, 8PM MST, 9PM CST, 10PM EST
New time: Date: January 10th, 2009, 5PM PST, 6PM MST, 7PM CST, 8PM EST

Duration: 2 hours (plan for 3.25 hours.)

The plan is for Saturday evening, not Sunday. As a monthly event, not daily. For next month's, I'll aim for a Sunday evening to try that out (but as I recall, that worked poorly for the races we had last fall.)

Max? Sven? What time are ya'll "shooting" for? I might be up for it (if only I can manage to remember)........

.....senility reeks.

Reminder: new times on January 10th, 2009, 5PM PST, 6PM MST, 7PM CST, 8PM EST.

Lizzy plans to be in attendance since you adjusted the hours Edward. And, maybe some other BBK. We will see in the very near future. Has to be near future rite...lol SVS is Saturday! I think it is a great idea and a good experience for all pirates. btw Maggie (me second pirate) will probably be there...not Lizzy.

I plan to attend,but it depends on some RL issues. It sounds like alot of fun and I hope I can make it!!:pirate41:

I will try to attend if RL will let me. thanx for the invite and all the work you put into this Edward, it really sound like a fun time. sea ya there i hope

I may be able to make this thanks to the new times. See ya then Edward and everyone else showing up.....this should be interesting.

I should be able to be there. Thanks Edward

:Pirate7: Ahoy Ed!...since ye changed the times for eastcoasters i am really hoping to be able to meet up with all ye mates tonight, one of me squidds (Squiddkiddy, orSquidmonkee) will try :skull-crossbones1: Thanks :piratewheelgo2:

plunder on, Grace Squidkidd :dancetl6:

Apparently my contingency plans were lacking. I've run into trouble getting my cable modem reactivated; in the event I miss the event, please take copious screen shots to claim the (delayed) prizes. Wish me luck dealing with the ISP...

All's well now. The event will start in about three hours from now! (Whew!) (Note the POF clock seems to be off by a half hour.)

aarglet!
 

Well done Edgrrr Edmanace,
your event seems to be going well.
I personally hate cable, scurvy thing it is.
back on my Ship, the USS Neverdock we used cable, it always irratated me to no end. .... BLAH.
Never happens on me dock, on me Island,... and It is my Island Mate. !

Lower turnout than expected...starting late on Battira, at shipwright on Ile d'Etable de Porc.

<hr>

Synopsis of first half: Griefers (me,) griefers (me,) griefers. The initial 8 people that were on time to the event had a comfortable start, but when reinforcements arrived to double the attendance, the feces hit the fan, as it were. SHRAPNEL effects cause not simple wounds to people, but stunned all crew aboard most ships.

Yet another SvS glitch.

Shrapnel, from the description in the skills panel, is not supposed to stun people, nor is it supposed to prevent people from switching cannons. But alas, it does, both.

After bitter accusations of cheating on both sides, all participants empties their stores of grape shot to prevent further accusations. It actually is taking a while to do and is still in progress now...

Event over, first and last sets were by far the most enjoyable. Screen shots to follow...

Unfortunately, the crowd dispersed too quickly for my main announcement. Because of the massive amount of foul calls, everyone that participated (all 16 people) are hereby awarded the 10,000 gold doubloon prize. So far, only three have collected. (Yes, you can name another pirate you'd like to receive the gold, instead.)

Much to my dismay, the game POTCO simply can't do ship vs. ship. Each ship had approximately half the allowed crew, yet "blinking/jumping" was pervasive (despite all the participants, especially the drivers, being absolutely trustworth and very much interested in a glitch-free event.) Round shot turned out to be massively more harmful than I ever imagined. Not only did shrapnel (incorrectly) stun, it also (incorrectly) glitched people off cannons, preventing crucial cannon switching and it also (incorrectly) locked up ships, making them completely immobile. The server we were on was very quiet. 1 or 2 ships per side. Ships would also lock up whenever firebrand was in the air. Maxed broadsides seem to be guilty of the one-hit-wonder phenomenon, even without open fire.

So, no ammo AT ALL can be used in SvS, to achieve a glitch-free battle.

Its a sad day for me. I know now that SvS will never amount to a fair, playable game. This is the end of the first and last glitch-free event for me, since such a thing is fiction. Even round shot only would still have all the shrapnel problems, making it eternally unplayable. And even I can't picture a "chain shot only" event.

Thank you very much, all of BBK and PIC for the last-minute support.

After all the initial problems, the svs turned out to be quite informative. As Edward said schrapnel causes alot of problems that can be blamed on other things. I would like to thank all BBK and PIC members who showed up and those other pirates who I am not sure of their guilds. And thanks to Edward for holding the event and being a good sport in admitting he was incorrect. And a special thanks to Ed for awarding shiney to all who participated that wanted the shiney. Now me second pirate has enuff to but a war ship. hmmm..all she needs is sum skill..lol

It's funny - I was WAY off. This answers my nagging question about the official privateering contest though. I knew back then, that I didn't get points for grape shot - so for the entire privateering contest I used only round shot when on cannon. In hindsight, it is obvious why that was so successful, but it sure wasn't obvious back then. In all this time, I never realized that my round shot stuns enemies more effectively than grape shot. (It is more effective, really, because it doesn't tell them they are stunned, it just stuns them.) I didn't know it locks up enemy boats, either.

Thanks again to all the participants. Please reply here or PM me, if you didn't get your gold yet.

Congrats on a sucessful event Edward :D I unfortunately being an hour behind everyone else even on the East Coast still had to many RL issues to deal with to make it...

Bravo :)

I'm not sure what you mean by "successful event" - perhaps that people had some fun? That some people won some of my gold at the poker tables? (Thank you all, BTW!)

I'm not convinced it is even possible to have a glitch-free SvS match. The server-side lag is beyond abominable. Even with allowing firebrand in this past event, I never once saw client-side lag. What I did see, was that whenever two people with shrapnel hit an enemy boat, that boat locks up, 100% immobile. (That, apparently, was what was causing the violations of rule #12 above.)

If I try this again (unlikely, considering how poorly this worked,) then it will be for something like LEVEL 10 PIRATES AND BELOW ONLY. But given what happened when everyone was using only round shot, I doubt even that would make for a glitch-free SvS match...probably see other strange server-side lockups as soon as there were 4 or more people.

The event was successful, in that it showed that glitch-free SvS, is an oxymoron. I can still dream, though.

I find that if you look at a project as a whole and tackle it that way - you find hardship because the goals are too large...

Success can be measured in smaller chunks - the event took place (success), there was new discovery (success), and even with issues players got to have some fun and entertain themselves for a while (success)... true - not everything worked out as planned - but in any large undertaking... it never does ;)

Excellent points. I agree with you.

OK, I concede the event was a success on several fronts.

Again, thank you BBK - your guild clearly has the best glitch-free pirates!

Some screen shots...

Checking the score...

Hard at work...

Two ships immobile.

Checking score another time, just before it hit the fan...