Questions for those who were at TeX-Ball

[GoatBoy]

vf-xx: yeah, it might depend on format. I think it's still doable though. If the next event were to be X-Ball again (hey, it worked, why rock the boat), I think it would be perfectly manageable. Play with the numbers a bit.


TeamNausea: If someone cares about team stacking, then they should go select their team. That's what this choice is about. All the people who are in win-win-win mode can clump together and make their own fate. The rest of us who just want to meet and greet and get some ball in, we just go for the random teams. And I think that completely random teams don't necessarily enable meeting new people. Either you want to meet new people or you don't; you can be randomly selected for a team and still spend all of your time away from your team hanging out with your buddies and not even really meet the rest of your "team".


But hey, if I'm the only one who thinks that separating the two types is a good idea, I'll just clamp it.

[Rather]

I didn't mind it. It was a great time. Prolly could have improved it by having diferent ahts to draw out of so we don't ahve another team sandbaggers (not that i minded being on their team ) and things are a little fairer for everyone.

[wyn1370]

where's the option for curtis is a tool?
random was good, keep it that way
we're there for fun, not to win anything

[Albinonewt]

That's a tough call. On one hand random is best for keeping things fair and balanced, and not having any sandbagging teams. On the other hand, some people travel accross the country to see their buddies they don't normally see and it stinks to not be able to play with them.

But it seems everyone had fun on random teams, so i would keep it that way.

[James]

random even though i wasnt there that sounds more fun and after all thats what it is all about.

[GoatBoy]

People keep mentioning the term 'fair', but what does that mean in an event like this?

Set aside prizes, as Havoc stated in his post.

If people just come to simply play paintball, what would be the most 'unfair' thing to happen to them?

[Havoc_online]

I Think I'm getting the idea, thanks for the feedback.

[Recon by Fire]

What about running two divisions, one organized teams and the other random teams? Barring that, everybody on the field at once and everyman for himself!

[TeamNausea]

Yeah^^^ I like that where you can play in both. Organized and random. Not in the same tournament in 2 different ones.

[vf-xx]

People keep mentioning the term 'fair', but what does that mean in an event like this?

Set aside prizes, as Havoc stated in his post.

If people just come to simply play paintball, what would be the most 'unfair' thing to happen to them?

IMO: it's no fun if you're always loosing. I don't care about prizes, but I do enjoy winning even if only perodically.

[Albinonewt]

If people just come to simply play paintball, what would be the most 'unfair' thing to happen to them?

The point isn't winning as much as it is having fun. If you traveled halfway accross the country to play and just hooked up with some fokls you normally don't get to see, but somone else brought 9 friends that play all the time and really sandbag you it isn't fun. Losing isn't the problem, it's getting beat down so hard and so fast that you don't enjoy your trip.

[Creative Mayhem]

If you traveled halfway accross the country...

*AHEM* or another country*

[Fuji]

I agree with mixed & random teams. But, how about if you bring a friend along, but they want to be on your team? I liked the random format, it allowed me to meet some way cool people. (Thanks, Curtis, Claire, Brian, Evan... oy yeah and Ed... again. ) It would be cool to ahve a random team selection with the possibility of having your friend on the same team as you.

P.S. - sorry I haven't posted much lately, not that I posted much before.

P.P.S. - Brian, We need to work out the lengths of wires for that warp mod. email me or IM me your email address!

[Albinonewt]

*AHEM* or another country*

I'm sorry, when did America-lite become a country. You're a province, if that.

[GoatBoy]

Canada: Just one calorie?

It really just sounds like everyone is concerned with:

1. Not getting to play with people you specifically wanted to play with.

and

2. Losing.

Both of these are solved by the same solution: allowing people to hand pick their own teams. Conversely, a completely random selection does not necessarily alleviate either of these two.

#1 I can totally understand, and that's a good reason for allowing people to pick teams.

#2... Losing is not necessarily 'unfair'. It's a result of competition. If you wanted it to be fair, you'd make sure all games and matches ended in draws and everybody got warm happy fuzzies at the end of the day. But on any given day, in competition, you're going to have losers, and you're going to have winners. Someone's going to win because they simply had an advantage. Whether it's team stacking by random, or team stacking by selection. Someone's going to win, and someone's going to lose.

Let's face it guys... Team 1 got stacked BY RANDOM SELECTION. And through all this, I have heard some joking and good humored ribbing about it, but I haven't really heard any complaints (or maybe I missed them?). Did any of you NOT enjoy playing against Team 1? I played against Team 1. I lost. I had a great time!


On the extreme, if you are so overly obsessed with winning (not pointing any fingers at anyone in this thread by the way), you shouldn't take your tournamentitis out on your randomly selected team, which might be comprised of newbies to AO and people who might not have wanted to play with you in the first place. You should take your tournamentitis out on your own hand-picked buddies. Afraid of losing? Pick your own team!

Everybody else? Random selection.