Saturday, March 19, 2011

Supporting the NOVA / Thoughts on Tournaments

Well, it was an interesting week at work, I wound up in Texas for most of it (Fort Worth area).

I'm back at work again this Saturday, and though I'd drop a quick note on an important subject.


There are a LOT of people out there who very vocally support the NOVA, and I appreciate that.  The one problem, guys, is make sure you keep things in the context of actually supporting us.  What I mean is - if some fella near you starts up a GT or RTT or whatever and does not use a NOVA styled format ... be very careful about browbeating the poor fellow about how much BETTER the NOVA is ... it's fine to love it, I'm glad you all do - we work as hard as we can to make it great, and to make it constantly better.  That said, tournament organizers are a prissy bunch (I  know, I'm prissy as heck!), and we as a general rule don't like our events shat upon or strongly contrasted with OTHER events.

SOME TO's will take deep offense when this sorta thing happens, and they tend to start talking, and they tend to share with others that they are upset, and it isn't good for the hobby at all.

The NOVA is a great format, and I hope it continues to get better and better; I'm flattered when other events follow suit!  That said, events are great because their TO's care about the way they are pulled off, and have a passion for the format they present; rather than lambasting an event because it "isn't" NOVA ... encourage ALL events to be as great as they can be, while staying true to the foundational ideas of their organizers.  So, support the NOVA ... I really appreciate it ... but don't tear DOWN other events.  It just isn't good for any of us.

A reminder, by the way - if you're planning on signing up for the 40k GT, you should!  We're running out of spots.

 - Mike

5 comments:

  1. Very little good has ever come from complaining or telling someone that someone else's stuff is better.

    I suspect that TO's will be under-represented among the complainers. Once you've worn those shoes and appreciate the effort involved in organising you'll be a lot less inclined to criticise anyone who makes the effort to organise a tournament.

    Let your feet do the talking. That's all the feedback any TO needs.

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  2. Right on point. If you prefer to attend only NOVA style events -- only attend NOVA style events. Don't attend other style events and spend the whole day bitching about it.

    Now, if a local TO asks you why you're not attending his event, let him know POLITELY the what and why -- he'll be more likely to listen that way.

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  3. The other thing to consider with NOVA style events is that they only work really well, when you have enough rounds to produce only one undefeated player. In a 3 round RTT, there are simply not enough rounds to do this if you have say 20 people. That is not to say you cannot run NOVA missions, but you will still likely need battle points to determine the overall winner.

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  4. Well, the funny thing is, NOVA suggests awarding equivalent prizes to all undefeateds after X rounds for Best General, and warding the solo Best Overall (Even with enough rounds) to 33% rating/possible + 33% appearance/possible + 33% sports/possible. C'est la vie; you still make the generally good point that not all situations easily / readily cater to applying the NOVA's format.

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  5. Very true on the Renaissance man score. You could with tweaking use that score to determine a tourney winner (not sure with a simple RTT style that you want each part being 1/3rd of the total).

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