As you know, there are several rules enforced for all ESPGL-related on-location events that do not exist in online competitive leagues, or even on-location events not run by ESPGL. The original reason for these rules is to maintain professional conduct of participants and to present a good image to the public eye.

We're not saying we're going to be making changes to the rules at this time but for the moment we'd like community feedback on a few things:


1) Dead chat. You are currently not allowed to talk to teammates (including other dead teammates) via in-game teamchat OR person-to-person while dead.

2) Locked dead speccing. You are currently not allowed to flip through still-live teammates while dead. (This is the infamous 'hands off mouse' rule)

3) Communication with opponents. You are currently not allowed to communicate (taunting OR otherwise) with opponents when matches are live, both via in-game chat OR person-to-person, with the exception of team leaders using the in-game chat. (And obviously no taunting even then)

4) Foul language. For any reason whatsoever, foul language results in an instant warning. This pseudo-officially includes "shit".


There were very good reasons for implementing these rules, and I believe to a certain extent that those reasons still apply. However due to the past culture of FPS gaming, up to the CyberFusion event we've been trying to be as lenient as possible with the rules, administering reminders instead of warnings or totally letting things slide for minor cases. However due to the scale of the CyberFusion tourney we had to be much stricter with the rules we decided upon.

There comes a point where the ideals of professionalism starts to clash with the overal event atmosphere and enjoyment of tournaments. This is why this thread exists now, so you guys can tell us what you think, and how the rules have or have not worked out practically.

I'll get a little bit into the 'why's of certain rules after this thread develops a little, but I'd like some feedback FIRST before saying anything. If you have a beef with the rules, this is your chance to speak up!. Your time and effort is greatly appreciated.

Let's also branch out the discussion a little, to:

a) Coming on time, postponing matches (League) and its related penalties

b) Tournament draws, seeding vs random

I mentioned people coming on time in the Cyberfusion thread. I'm completely serious about that... it REALLY helped.

Even though me (and by inclusion Holyboy (ahahaha you suck)) screwed up servers at the start and thus we only kicked off at ~12:15pm instead of as originally planned at around 10:45 to 11am, we basically folded a full 16 single elimination tournament using 4 islands into about 6 hours, not counting the time we paused for the presentation, and we did so while undermanned. (like... 4 marshals total for 4 islands?)

If we can keep up that level of efficiency or maybe slightly improve on it, (i.e. starting games off sooner after the previous game is done) we may even be able to look at implementing a full double elim some point in future.

With some teams becoming as good as they are, I think a double elim may actually sooner or later become more necessary to foster a healthy community.

A double elim would also probably make multiple-team groups happier, as it justifies seeding. As it is, when you seed great teams into different brackets in single elim, it heightens or completely guarantees the chance that startup teams WILL get eliminated within their first games. Having absolutely no hope of making it past the first round sucks for people trying to learn the game/metagame, and while that will always happen, it's happening more now than previously because there just are so many good teams.

While tournaments are all about which team is better (within reason and within the confines of the tournament/environment/situation i.e. blaring techno music ahahah) people improve via experience and playing for keeps is miles different from friendly scrims.

I would say a well-run league is the best source of competitive experience, and if a tournament has to be run, a double elim will garner the most interest especially after a community matures and you want to continue introducing new people to competitive aspect of a particular game.

I've personally watched the ESP ACC team and SWL PeW mature in playstyle throughout the ACC league which has been going on 10 weeks now. Sure, they're all good players to begin with, but they've gelled together through shared experience and playing many different teams and different opponent playstyles.

Except SWL still loses to RnF. But let's not mention that lolol.

The fat kid sitting furthest on the right that got up on his chair and started shouting with his wheezing voice was the most annoying of the lot. Honestly if I wasn't marshaling I'd have gone over to do some... interesting things.

To make this more relevant, when things turn into yelling matches like that, it disrupts the flow of other islands. More often than not there's more than 1 island (or even different titles) going on simultaneously and it's distracting as hell when mongoloids start making themselves look like retarded shit-chucking chimpanzees. Don't do it.

Wat, it was completely random. ABC drew your card for you.

This post has been edited by Falk: Apr 13 2009, 10:05 PM

^ ???

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Added on April 13, 2009, 11:27 pmPersonally after watching matches I really feel that dead teamchat is not much of a security issue. If a live teammate spares enough attention to actually read text on the next screen over he may miss something important on his own screen. On the flip side if nothing's happening anyway, what info would there be for teammates to disclose?

Thoughts?

(OBVIOUSLY THIS ISN'T A RULE CHANGE, I'M JUST FOSTERING SOME DISCUSSION KK)

This post has been edited by Falk: Apr 13 2009, 11:27 PM

Just to clarify a little about taunts.

At the moment, 'undirected' taunts or stuff aimed at teammates along the lines of "YES, KILL ANOTHER ONE GOGO" are allowed while taunts obviously directed at opponents like "YOU GOT OWNED" (and "IS THAT ALL YOU GOT" ) are not allowed.

The main problem as I see it is that the further we go into opponent-directed taunts, the grayer the line is, and the logistical problem is that we don't have just 1 marshal, we have 4+ at any given tourney and we need a very easily differenciable line so that penalties awarded (if necessary) are similar enough coming from different people.

Like I told a few players, it really does revolve around how you phrase the morale metagame, and building a mindset of funnelling everything to your teammates will help out.

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Added on April 14, 2009, 9:58 amRegarding dead teamspeccing, my personal opinion after watching many games is, the rule itself really does detract from the experience, and as it is, the 'buffer time' before marshals remind you to take your hands off the mouse is already more than enough time to swap to the teammate your neighbour wants to see, and therefore enforcing the rule does nothing to prevent the behavior its intended to curb if people are determined enough to utilize it.

If teams are good enough to utilize dead players' screens as a CCTV, then all the power to them, I honestly don't see it any more of an unfair advantage than seating your team in a specific order.

Don't quote me on this (yet) but this rule will most likely be revised in future.

Regardless of any changes in future, you still won't have any communication between the living and the dead, though. A live teammate cannot ask a dead teammate to spec X player, which could incur a penalty along the lines of a dead teammate talking to a live one. That dead teammate will have to come to that conclusion of who to spec himself.

This post has been edited by Falk: Apr 14 2009, 09:59 AM

Read faster. :V

And no, teammates typing in Paki or Tagalog or Canto isn't a valid complaint either.

Well, that's 3 people so far recommending that. I need some clarification though. If this is meant to avoid dead intel, it does its job for P1 not being able to see dead P5's chat, but he can still see the text that dead P2 types. Was this an issue during CS days?

This post has been edited by Falk: Apr 14 2009, 07:46 PM

While I don't practice casual swearing personally, it kinda is part and parcel of market culture nowadays regardless what Moral Studies syllabus are crammed into schools.

However the main point of the foul language bans on on-location events is the fact that there's usually media coverage and publicity. How would you like the Science and Tech minister to briefly pass by a game and have his ears turn purple and fall off?

If you guys want to hire hookers and smoke weed while playing privately, i.e. on on-line leagues, etc, it's none of our business how you spend your leisure time.

What about:

NO communication between live and dead teammates whatsoever, but no restriction on dead teamspeccing?

Live can shout to other live teammates, dead can discuss with other dead teammates with reasonable volume.

Probably falls back on the ESPGL commitee sometime in immediate future (especially since other events are coming up)

I can foresee a lot of shouting AT dead teammates.

That happens regardless of the rules being able or not able to talk to live teammates, though.