Forum

by **barterer2002** on Tue Apr 19, 2011 6:13 pm

Thanks to all who hosted, played in and encouraged the Tournament Players Association in this our first season. I'm now looking for imput for the Next season. Here's where we are at the moment.

Next Monday HighlanderAttack will start our Fourth Major and our 52nd tournament, bookending nicely as he began the TPA one year ago. At this point, including next week's event, there are still 24 events to finish off.

With that in mind here's the schedule we're looking at over the next few months.

On June 5 the Inaugural Ricco Cup will take place featuring the top 12 players from the USA vs the top 12 from the world as taken from the TPA scoreboard on the final day of April

On August 1 we will start Season 2 of the TPA (hoping that we will have finished off most of the Season 1 events). Sonicsteve, who is currently leading will host the opening day event.

Season 2 will feature three levels of TPA tournaments. Majors (4) Premier (16) and Standard (32). Each quarter of the season will feature 1 major, 4 Premier and 8 Standard events.

The scoring will be entirely revamped. We're working out the details of that within the TO forum but it will be set up so that players can win without joining all the games. The goal is to make it possible for players to participate in 25-30 tournaments and still have the ability to win. We'll also do a better job of spreading out the points so that majors get the most points, with Premier falling between major and standard.

We have 4 new Majors hosts for Season 2 and I'm pleased to announce them here
Benga-will host the terminator major
keiths31 will host the assassin major
Lindax will host the Teams major
Gilligan will host the 1v1 major

At this point I'd like to open it up to those who have or would like to play in the TPA to let me know what changes you'd like to see. Understand that we're not going to please everyone and that there are certain basic tenants that the TPA will continue to be true to but let us know what you're thoughts are on how we can improve.

by **jonty125** on Wed Apr 20, 2011 3:25 am

When the schedule for the quarter comes out mark which ones are premium only and which ones 'freemium' players can enter.

by **barterer2002** on Wed Apr 20, 2011 12:31 pm

The major/premium/standard ones will all be marked. Will work on getting the Freemium friendly ones marked (have to get info from each TO). Goal is to have at least 50% freemium eligible so they are able to compete for championship as well.

by **kennys777** on Wed Apr 20, 2011 10:41 pm

found it!!! I always use the backdoor to the other thread, so I was confused...Anyway, the only problem I have had over the past 8 months was the Monday sign-ups because everyone is on a different time zone. I missed a few sign-ups. I would suggest a specific time-zone post for all tourneys on Monday.

Along with that issue, the few TOs that missed their mark on Monday altogether. There should be reserve tournaments in place and on the schedule (PPD rain) just in case. This way, players would know what the next alternate will be if something happens to the regularly scheduled tourney.

I might come up with other stuff in the future, but who knows. Still a bit disturbed by the top 12 players, I don't know if I am going to make that cut!

by **kennys777** on Wed Apr 20, 2011 10:49 pm

SWEET, just checked, I think I am ranked 9th for Team USA on the TPA...

by **benga** on Thu Apr 21, 2011 2:33 am

barterer2002 wrote:The major/premium/standard ones will all be marked. Will work on getting the Freemium friendly ones marked (have to get info from each TO). Goal is to have at least 50% freemium eligible so they are able to compete for championship as well.

I don't think that freemiums even with 50 % eligibillity could participate as much as you wish.

4 games is just not enough as they could participate in 4 tournaments max, if we were to ever finish in timely order.

by **kennys777** on Thu Apr 21, 2011 7:05 am

benga wrote:
barterer2002 wrote:The major/premium/standard ones will all be marked. Will work on getting the Freemium friendly ones marked (have to get info from each TO). Goal is to have at least 50% freemium eligible so they are able to compete for championship as well.

I don't think that freemiums even with 50 % eligibillity could participate as much as you wish.

4 games is just not enough as they could participate in 4 tournaments max, if we were to ever finish in timely order.

If you front loaded the freemiums on the schedule, and also some in the middle, and then the rest near the end of the year, it might work itself out. There are a lot of the tourneys that finish quickly, or at least once TPA got moving. It was the sign-ups that took forever in a couple, but that was months ago, before it was widely known.

by **keiths31** on Thu Apr 21, 2011 7:13 am

What is a reasonable amount of tournaments a freemium can be expected to play? Maybe there can be a separate ranking system for premium players and freemium...

by **sonicsteve** on Thu Apr 21, 2011 7:17 am

jonty125 wrote:When the schedule for the quarter comes out mark which ones are premium only and which ones 'freemium' players can enter.

The opening tournament in season 2 will allow freemiums to enter.

by **jpcloet** on Thu Apr 21, 2011 7:21 am

It is nice to allow freemiums to compete, however, there is no need to cater to them. If the TPA is not a big enough incentive to go premium, nothing will be.

by **Lindax** on Thu Apr 21, 2011 10:00 am

jpcloet wrote:It is nice to allow freemiums to compete, however, there is no need to cater to them. If the TPA is not a big enough incentive to go premium, nothing will be.

Agreed!

Lx

by **Night Strike** on Thu Apr 21, 2011 11:15 am

jpcloet wrote:It is nice to allow freemiums to compete, however, there is no need to cater to them. If the TPA is not a big enough incentive to go premium, nothing will be.

Truth!

by **barterer2002** on Thu Apr 21, 2011 12:29 pm

Yeah, tracking who is and isn't a freemium through the year would be such a pain in the ass.

Kenny-with regards to the sign ups. Two points. 1). Using a specific time is somewhat against what I'd like to do. We have players from all over the world so if we set something in a certain time frame it would set certain people at a disadvantage in all tournaments. As it is, we're somewhat skewed to the US/Canadian time zones but there are plenty of players in Asia (including some of the TOs). For that reason there won't be a specific time on Mondays that the events will go up.

As far as TOs missing their date. There were some growing pains. Part of it is TOs learning the process, part is me not getting the reminders out timely. This year we will expect more from our TOs.

by **Ace Rimmer** on Thu Apr 21, 2011 2:04 pm

There needs to be major incentive for TOs to run their TPA tournies in a timely manner. This was the biggest issue for me in the few that I participated in during season 1, and I know I saw a few that went a while between updates that I was not involved in. Waiting a month between the end of one round and the beginning of a second is a major disappointment, especially when the organizers are well-known TOs. If the TPA events are the "gold standard" of tourneys, then I think that they should be run as such and expected to adhere to a higher standard for organization.

Bart, if you want more specific info, please PM me.

by **ubcman64** on Thu Apr 21, 2011 4:54 pm

jakewilliams wrote:There needs to be major incentive for TOs to run their TPA tournies in a timely manner. This was the biggest issue for me in the few that I participated in during season 1, and I know I saw a few that went a while between updates that I was not involved in. Waiting a month between the end of one round and the beginning of a second is a major disappointment, especially when the organizers are well-known TOs. If the TPA events are the "gold standard" of tourneys, then I think that they should be run as such and expected to adhere to a higher standard for organization.

Bart, if you want more specific info, please PM me.

I have enjoyed the TPA very much. That being said, Jake brings up the one major area that bothered me. This definitely needs to be looked at before the next season begins.