CCup4 Comment Thread

[crispybits]

I'm not pissed because of any wasted work, I'm pissed at being handed a slightly less shitty stick than I was originally offered, while the same group of people are being handed silver spoons, and being told "be happy! it's a good compromise!"

I ask again, because you actually didn't answer with any reasons, just gave me the official press release again:

How does a competition that satisfies one half of the divide, and does nothing to meet the criticisms of the other side of the divide, make for any sort of compromise?

[jetsetwilly]

We would not pretend for a second that this was going to satisfy the guys who wanted the full random cup. It's closer to option 1, not because it's meant to favour anyone, but purely because we felt that as someone else put it, "baby steps" were best when introducing change to an established and successful competition.

It's going to be very hard for us to convince you that there isn't a conspiracy at work here. PM me if you would like to discuss it further.

[crispybits]

But you did pretend. Bruce clearly pretended.

Listen to everything that is said and create a new format trying our best to create a tournament that goes some way to please everyone...

With the support and backing of rdsrds2120 we have chose to stop the vote and take an option in the middle of what people want.

I have nothing to say via PM if you guys don't understand these two points, and I haven't seen any evidence that you do:

1) Being told we are getting a compromise, when we are getting no such thing, is likely to lead to a lot of resentment, especially when there were other options that would have compromised on the criticisms raised by both sides for both extremes.
2) Choosing a format that does everything to placate one side of a divide, whilst ignoring the other side of the divide, against the democratic wishes of the community, is not a compromise.

Seems like if you guys don't like something, well lets just change the rules around, lets make unilateral decisions to sort this out, etc etc. As soon as you have it the way you like it suddenly you become powerless to respond to criticism with anything more than really weak denials and apologies about your inability to change it now....

[Chariot of Fire]

I'd love some answers. Bruce? Anyone?

I have some questions:

1. Sign-ups are now being taken for CC4. When do you expect the tournament to begin? Has any concession/consideration been made for the clans still competing in CC3 who are about to embark on a 60-game final or are they expected to start CC4 at the same time as other clans?

2. In the Rules, under 'Seedings' it is written that 'the seedings will be determined by the latest F400 rankings' and then it contradicts itself by saying the 1st April rankings will be used. If the F400 is updated after 1st April and before the draw is made, which version will be used?

3. For the 41st game and 61st game in the challenges prior to the semis & final there is no definition of what that game should be (may I suggest Classic trips, esc, chained, sunny?)

4. For the semis & final, one of the 7 tie-breaker games must be "trips on random". This is too vague. It should establish the settings as well, i.e. spoils, forts & fog/sun. Again I'd suggest you opt for the very straightforward Classic trips ECS as the 7th game otherwise 'random' could end up being Luxembourg (too quick and unfair) or Hive (too long and causes delay)

5. "When games are sent, they must already be created and fully joined by the home team" - and then you give 5 days to the other clan to join? That's almost a week! Why not adopt the system we used to use in the Clan League, i.e. game details are exchanged by a deadline. With the method you're using all I have to do is check the games created by the oppo to see what maps & settings they are going to give us (really easy for a guy sitting in Hong Kong at lunchtime as the midnight deadline in Montreal approaches). Seems really daft.

Those are my questions/suggestions. Thanks

[chemefreak]

I'd love some answers. Bruce? Anyone?

I have some questions:

1. Sign-ups are now being taken for CC4. When do you expect the tournament to begin? Has any concession/consideration been made for the clans still competing in CC3 who are about to embark on a 60-game final or are they expected to start CC4 at the same time as other clans?

2. In the Rules, under 'Seedings' it is written that 'the seedings will be determined by the latest F400 rankings' and then it contradicts itself by saying the 1st April rankings will be used. If the F400 is updated after 1st April and before the draw is made, which version will be used?

3. For the 41st game and 61st game in the challenges prior to the semis & final there is no definition of what that game should be (may I suggest Classic trips, esc, chained, sunny?)

4. For the semis & final, one of the 7 tie-breaker games must be "trips on random". This is too vague. It should establish the settings as well, i.e. spoils, forts & fog/sun. Again I'd suggest you opt for the very straightforward Classic trips ECS as the 7th game otherwise 'random' could end up being Luxembourg (too quick and unfair) or Hive (too long and causes delay)

5. "When games are sent, they must already be created and fully joined by the home team" - and then you give 5 days to the other clan to join? That's almost a week! Why not adopt the system we used to use in the Clan League, i.e. game details are exchanged by a deadline. With the method you're using all I have to do is check the games created by the oppo to see what maps & settings they are going to give us (really easy for a guy sitting in Hong Kong at lunchtime as the midnight deadline in Montreal approaches). Seems really daft.

Those are my questions/suggestions. Thanks

1. We fully expect there will be a play-in round when this thing starts. So by the time sign ups are done, the administrative stuff is done, and the play-in is over we think the CCup3 will be finished. We certainly want those clans in the finals to compete in this cup and will do what we can to accommodate that.

2. Good catch. So many drafts that date got missed. We will just leave it at the "most recent" when it starts.

3. The 41st game will be Trips on Classic, sunny, chained, no spoils and the 61st game will be Trips on Classic, sunny, chained, no spoils. Not sure why this was left out but it was in prior drafts. A good catch, again.

4. I think the random was the "fun of it" for the 7th game. The settings were supposed to be sunny, chained, no spoils. Again, so many drafts, don't know why this got lost in the shuffle. A good catch, again.

5. The stated rule is what was agreed upon. This is the first time anyone has brought it up. I think most get filled much faster, but we don't want to have to be dealing with complaints about delays after a few days. That is why the rule is written the way it is.

[Chariot of Fire]

OK, thanks Nick. As a veteran of many challenges I generally catch a lot of things

Need a consultant?

[eddie2]

ok my last question on this whole thing but let me start by where i am coming from...

at no point have i made any demands for any form of format my main concerns were
1st of all

the demand of being a member of cdf in the end of it clan league only had a post saying must be eligible to join which was quickly changed when i highlighted it.... and it has never been a demand to join any user group to take part in a event..
then i got a comment from jetsetwilly.

Eddie, there is plenty of valid discussion in this thread. What is not needed is your personal issue with the C&Friends being voiced in here. The group functions well and is far removed from the CLA. You may not agree and that is your prerogative but it's here to stay and serves a very valid purpose.

my post was nothing to do with any form of grudge via cdf i think i left on good terms because i seen it turning into what has happened where if you do not agree with certain people they will not listen and go with what they wanted.

new format
cd's over ruled all voting giving us one days notice of what format was with a 2 week sign up date.... this was totally against the format the member of aka had voted for and he is on holiday so i posted that i would not sign aka up without first talking to him... to get this response from nicky...

The Easter holiday in the UK ran from 29th March - April the 1st. So that holiday is over, of course I do not have details for the rest of the world. As you have stated many times that you will not be participating in the Cup then we will pm the rest of your clan to see what their wishes are. You do not need to worry or be involved Eddie If Eddie says he wont represent his clan on this matter then is it fair that we do not give his clan a chance to sign-up ? I don't think so, that is why we will pm every other member of the clan to see if they want to play.

signing up of new clans

now there are 3 or 4 clans that have not meet the requirements these are

aoc/empire
vvv
atlantis

here is a quote from a clan mod regarding this issue..

Now as i said before we will address this issue if it ever arises. There is currently one clan that has opted out of CDF that is true, and there are two very new clans that haven't quite yet met the requirements to be a member. If any of these three clans want to play, then we will of course consider it. More than likely we would ask for the opinion of the members of CDF.

did a vote take place were the clan world asked if they were ok with these clans taking part ??????? NO...

do they meet the requirements ???? no..

have clan mods changed the requirements for joining cdf ?????

now let me get to the last part of it...

from a clan mod again..

You are well aware of the issues in the clan league. Organizers sometimes make bad choices when they are left to make unregulated decisions, you yourself have been a victim of a bad TO.

yes i have and sorry but what has been happening here is the worst of all the bad to's i have came across.... like i have said before format although it would be nice to have a say at the end of it it lies with the organizer(which was dako) and if clans don't like don't join.. but you took this from him with promises of this that and the other then made 2 votes both and ended up with the totally opposite of what won the votes...

ow and ps nicky i disrupted razorvich from his holiday something i do not like to do because it is meant to be a break away from everything and here is his response..

the clan mods should not be spamming aka members with any messages.

we will have a vote late next week to see if you all want to join this torny.


it has been a total cock up from the start though. lots of heated discussion and regretful comments from heaps of people....all from others not in aka.

[benga]

Is this then final draft for CC4?

When I read it at first W2.1 was the tie.

Not sure what other things changed.

[chemefreak]

Is this then final draft for CC4?

When I read it at first W2.1 was the tie.

Not sure what other things changed.

I don't think anything has changed. For some reason the tiebreakers were left out of the final draft! I'm pretty sure that Classic Trips was the discussed tiebreaker and was changed in the last draft, but not in the posted one.

[chemefreak]

OK, thanks Nick. As a veteran of many challenges I generally catch a lot of things

Need a consultant?

If you see anything else we would definitely like to hear it Si. There were drafts in three different threads in the main forum, in CDF, and in the CDs private forum. So by the time the "final" one got posted it was difficult to tell what got left out and what didn't. I think everything got discussed...well, at least with about 1000 posts on the subjects in various forums, you would hope! Cheers.

[greenoaks]

We would not pretend for a second that this was going to satisfy the guys who wanted the full random cup. It's closer to option 1, not because it's meant to favour anyone, but purely because we felt that as someone else put it, "baby steps" were best when introducing change to an established and successful competition

why would you change the format if it was an 'established and successful competition' ?

[chemefreak]

Huh, seeded? I might have missed something... Is this the official cup?

I have to read up I suppose, but I wonder if my clan is interested in being butchered without any chance to draw a reasonable opponent.

You will hear from VDLL.

In order to get this to an even number of clans, there will be a play-in of some sort with comparable clans playing at the beginning. Of course, if you face the Legion in the first round...I can't guarantee that there will be no butchering

[chemefreak]

Death By Comity will not be participating due to the seeding.

Sorry to hear it.

[comic boy]

We would not pretend for a second that this was going to satisfy the guys who wanted the full random cup. It's closer to option 1, not because it's meant to favour anyone, but purely because we felt that as someone else put it, "baby steps" were best when introducing change to an established and successful competition

why would you change the format if it was an 'established and successful competition' ?

This !

[nagerous]

The only person from Nemesis in Wild Geese was Pmchugh, alongside Nagerous from BPB, and the rest mostly from L4D.
Nemesis disbanded considerably later.

Freddie Fircoal as well though he wasn't one of the leading members of Nemesis so to speak.

[eddie2]

ok question time

As qwert said, please continue discussion about AOC/EMP somewhere else.

In regards to the AOC/EMP merger and CL5 we decided (a decision neither Leehar nor jetsetwilly was a part of), to follow the rules instead of making an exception just because these happen to be very good clans. When they choose to create a new clan instead of the members of one joining the other, they will be treated as a new clan and cannot continue playing CL5. If they wish to continue playing CL5, the members of one clan will need to join the other. It is their choice.

This is a CL5 discussion and I like his idea. There is no rule broken. The players are cup tied for one phase only. It's actually very much in the rules.

if they merged into aoc or empire clan then yes it is in the rules. They have not done that they have dropped the aoc and empire clan (from what i believe into user groups.) So they are now a new clan by there own choice which means they did not enter this event and did not qualify to play in it.....

ps

to the clan mods on this result i think it is the most correct thing you guys/girls have done in the last 2 weeks and hope this is you turning over a new leaf... i will copy this post into the ccup4 thread to carry this convo further.

so will this be done in ccup4 as well

[chapcrap]

ok question time

As qwert said, please continue discussion about AOC/EMP somewhere else.

In regards to the AOC/EMP merger and CL5 we decided (a decision neither Leehar nor jetsetwilly was a part of), to follow the rules instead of making an exception just because these happen to be very good clans. When they choose to create a new clan instead of the members of one joining the other, they will be treated as a new clan and cannot continue playing CL5. If they wish to continue playing CL5, the members of one clan will need to join the other. It is their choice.

This is a CL5 discussion and I like his idea. There is no rule broken. The players are cup tied for one phase only. It's actually very much in the rules.

if they merged into aoc or empire clan then yes it is in the rules. They have not done that they have dropped the aoc and empire clan (from what i believe into user groups.) So they are now a new clan by there own choice which means they did not enter this event and did not qualify to play in it.....

ps

to the clan mods on this result i think it is the most correct thing you guys/girls have done in the last 2 weeks and hope this is you turning over a new leaf... i will copy this post into the ccup4 thread to carry this convo further.

so will this be done in ccup4 as well

So, this thing is that they drop from one clan event and are a new clan, but you trust them to play in another clan event? I don't think I will ever understand this decision. I like both clans, but they are messing up one event and refuse to say they are AOC with a new name so that they can keep playing in CL5 as one of the former clans and insist on calling themselves new and are trusted again to enter CC4.

Don't get me wrong, I like both of the former clans and all the members, but I just don't think they should be allowed to do this, the way they are doing it.

[jj3044]

ok question time

As qwert said, please continue discussion about AOC/EMP somewhere else.

In regards to the AOC/EMP merger and CL5 we decided (a decision neither Leehar nor jetsetwilly was a part of), to follow the rules instead of making an exception just because these happen to be very good clans. When they choose to create a new clan instead of the members of one joining the other, they will be treated as a new clan and cannot continue playing CL5. If they wish to continue playing CL5, the members of one clan will need to join the other. It is their choice.

This is a CL5 discussion and I like his idea. There is no rule broken. The players are cup tied for one phase only. It's actually very much in the rules.

if they merged into aoc or empire clan then yes it is in the rules. They have not done that they have dropped the aoc and empire clan (from what i believe into user groups.) So they are now a new clan by there own choice which means they did not enter this event and did not qualify to play in it.....

ps

to the clan mods on this result i think it is the most correct thing you guys/girls have done in the last 2 weeks and hope this is you turning over a new leaf... i will copy this post into the ccup4 thread to carry this convo further.

so will this be done in ccup4 as well

So, this thing is that they drop from one clan event and are a new clan, but you trust them to play in another clan event? I don't think I will ever understand this decision. I like both clans, but they are messing up one event and refuse to say they are AOC with a new name so that they can keep playing in CL5 as one of the former clans and insist on calling themselves new and are trusted again to enter CC4.

Don't get me wrong, I like both of the former clans and all the members, but I just don't think they should be allowed to do this, the way they are doing it.

Whether we use one of the existing usergroups and change the name, or take the appropriate threads and bring them into a "new" combined usergroup, we will have the same members, the same clan leaders, and the same abilities. It's all semantics. What does it really matter about the usergroup?

[crispybits]

It's not semantics though - it's already had a big effect on CL5.

The reason given for not wanting to combine into an existing usergroup was that you guys didn't want it to feel like either clan was being taken over by the other, that you wanted it to be a merger of equals. This inability to combine into a single existing usergroup because people within the group couldn't get past what are actually pure semantics caused CL5 to lose 2 particpating clans part way through.

Now you have a brand new clan because you chose to do it that way. Fair play, great stuff, congratulations. Why should anyone let that new clan into a major competition before they have proved they are stable, especially right off the back of every member of that new clan deciding to ditch another major competition because they couldn't deal with semantics in the history of a usergroup?

[chemefreak]

Does everyone here honestly believe that a combined Empire (one of the oldest clans on CC) and AoC (an extremely well established clan) would be unable to function in CCup4?

[crispybits]

Who knows? Back in my World of Warcraft days two of the biggest guilds on the server combined to form a raid group to go after world firsts in the next expansion a couple of months later. By the time that expansion hit, that new superguild had imploded and disbanded because despite the best of intentions and the fact they were pretty much all decent guys and girls the two groups just didnt mesh right.

There are no guarantees. Do you believe that a group of people who have just ditched on one major tournament midway should be allowed to bypass rules put in place to stop clans at risk of ditching part way through from competing in another major tournament before they have even proved they can complete a war together?

[eddie2]

Does everyone here honestly believe that a combined Empire (one of the oldest clans on CC) and AoC (an extremely well established clan) would be unable to function in CCup4?

as individual clans they will function very well. as 1 clan who knows.... all i know is that rules for this event previously and this event now were made agreed on (by most) that clans competing must of completed a war or 2 and been running for a set period of time.. several clans have fallen victim to this rule but have not complained about it have tried to argue it but have understood why them rules where there. can i ask you a simple question when i started aka with time players and the rest of time merged into aka we were not allowed to partake in this event so where is the difference....

if aka were to merge with atlantis or vvv (2 clans that do not meet the requirements) in a new clan. would you even of considered allowing us entry to this event.. experience and rank should not come into it. simple facts are.

new clans (dont qualify.)
wars complete 0
time clan been together 1 day...

these are the stats you should be looking at not who they are and if you are honestly going to tell me you would allow a clan with the above stats with no players ever been in the clan world then you are lieing to yourselves.

[notyou2]

I call "BULLSHIT".

[greenoaks]

Does everyone here honestly believe that a combined Empire (one of the oldest clans on CC) and AoC (an extremely well established clan) would be unable to function in CCup4?

everyone who has posted since you made this post, myself included.

[alt1978]

A lot has changed in the clan world since cc cup 2. New clans are a lot better now than they used to be and I think the cd's point that you have to look at the intention of a rule is completely spot on. The Pigrenters were not allowed to compete in the second CC Cup...and I am/was fine with that. We had no idea if we were ready or not but the clan world has evolved since then. Even in lopsided wars...you rarely have clan leaders going mia, games not being filled...and pms not being answered. Those very basic functions of a war not being performed are what the original intent of the experience factor was meant to weed out...as it was explained to me.
None of the clans in question fall into that category. They should all be allowed to compete...and there isn't a bit of self serving conspiracy-ness in that opinion because it's very possible that they could all beat us.

I'm just going to throw this out there as well...and I don't know if its the right place for it not...but $6.25 to $25 a year in free membership isn't worth the shit people give cds. These folks provide privileges...distribute medals, and maintain the forums and databases so the rest of us can click and join games with incredible ease. Perspective folks...perspective.

That's not including the countless hours spent on complaints...carefully wording public responses...and trying to send pm's to concerned parties. Additionally...these guys have to deal with an administration that has turned a disinterested eye toward the clan community...and they have to fight and battle for every little improvement that we get. Premium for the CC Cup winner is a huge deal...and there is a huge long term benefit to clans for premium being attached to the event. Nothing draws interest in something like premium (think tournaments that offer it). This is a big deal and worth a slap on the back or an "attaboy". If the cd's were site owners and had a stake in the game...sure...some of these complaints may hold more water...but these folks are volunteers.

For fucks sake its a tournament format for the best event on the site and the cd's are doing the best they can with a bunch of folks who hard to please to get as many clans as possible involved. The only conspiracy going on is the conspiracy of how little the administration helps support the clan world...but that's a topic for a different day and a different thread.

It's fine to have complaints and suggestions...but I think it's worth while to remember that these folks donate tons of their time to make this site better for clans. You're not going to hear that from them...because they are decent folks...but I have a ton of respect for the work they do and I want to say publicly..."thank you"...to the cds. Not everyone in the community (I would say in fact the vast majority) share some of the views expressed in this thread.

I appreciate your time and efforts.

Alan