[HarK0nNeN]

Hi all!

My name is HarK0nNeN, I am the admin in charge of the RFLAN SC2 Competition. I have decided to post a little thread here on SC2Sea to promote competition for Starcraft 2 in the WA Community. This is a sort of AMAA about RFLAN, SC2 Competition in general and future en devours we try to improve our competition.

I was originally a participant of the competition when RFLAN first introduce SC2 as one of the main competitions and it was crazy, I believe over 100 people signed up for the competition, as you can imagine, an unbelievable amount of players at the time of WOL launch. Since then I have observed the dwindling numbers of competitors that enter the competition. I guess in some way, I was contemplating attracting people from not only WA, but all over Australia, "maybe" international? That would be too far fetched! But one can only hope

I was not the original admin in charge of SC2, but we have tried various different things to make the competition run more smoothly, obviously an ongoing battle. Such examples include using MLG system in its conception, using challonge as a backup, but ultimately falling back on our own tournament system built for generic game competitions.

Since taking over the reigns of SC2, I have tried my absolute best to make the competitions run alot smoothly then the previous event. Obviously hiccups will happen, but that is where we all learn and try and rectify the issue. I have decided to introduce a 3 level priority list for items that can help improve the game competition. I would love to hear feedback or recommendations from players, LAN admins, esports community, casters on how we can try and make this competition more worth while.

3 Level Priority - 1/08/2013
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Fix up tournament software
Introduce Seeding (we did a trial of seeding last event, but hope to improve it next event.)
Seeding (Using Battle.Net Stats or LAN stats)
Automated Submission Option for player scores
Rewrite Competition policy (improvement)
Enforcement
Scheduling - Breakdown group rounds
===============
Casters/Streams (Improvements, delays, offline casting, multiple stream accounts, multiple casters)
Reworking Stage Showings (Reducing the amount of games played on stage)
===============
Booths
Casters/Streams (Further improvements)
Replay Submissions

Please feel free to ask anything and I will try and do my best to answer in a timely fashion.

[sRMakero]

You do a great job man!

I would just do random seeding unless you have a proper system in place. Also the map pool should always be the ladder pool, but maybe take out maps like sky island and red city, which blizz will hopefully remove anyway by the next rflan.
I think it should be clear what map we start on, or have a proper veto system in place. Either veto until there is three maps left and the person who veto'd first gets first pick, then losers pick. Or each round has a set starting map, then losers pick!

Keep up the good work,

glhf

[TtSYF.tRoy]

RFLan has the potential to be a massive Australian SC2 event.
If you do some of the things on that list like,
Casters/Streamers
Stage Improvements
Booths
Seeding
I think the event will be really awesome and players will come.
Also for seeding a idea is have some online rounds 2/3 coming into a event, the top 8 or 16 from the rounds earn points for seeding. then at LAN you have 16-48 players with points and you can seed a fair few.
Another idea with the seeding is have the top 1 or 2 seeded players get free flights to perth, this will attract top players from outside of WA to come compete in RFLan.

This all depends on how much eSports $$$ you have though

[HarK0nNeN]

Originally Posted by sRMakero

You do a great job man!

I would just do random seeding unless you have a proper system in place. Also the map pool should always be the ladder pool, but maybe take out maps like sky island and red city, which blizz will hopefully remove anyway by the next rflan.
I think it should be clear what map we start on, or have a proper veto system in place. Either veto until there is three maps left and the person who veto'd first gets first pick, then losers pick. Or each round has a set starting map, then losers pick!

Keep up the good work,

glhf

The seeding, like I said was just introduced, last event, with the data collected, I think it turned out okay, not great, but a good starting point. Something I can use to work on.

In regards to the map pool, I have always stated 1v1 Ladder Maps so there isn't that much discrepancy there.

The veto system, Yes I totally agree, I have had alot of complaints about it and "I Will" do something about it. That is part of my competition rewrite policy, which clearly state out the rules, which will include Vetos in clear black and white text for no confusion. I had already started doing research at the last event, but did not implement it so will be implemented next event.

Thank you for the feed back, hope to see you at the next RFLAN!

[HarK0nNeN]

Originally Posted by pXtRoy

RFLan has the potential to be a massive Australian SC2 event.
If you do some of the things on that list like,
Casters/Streamers
Stage Improvements
Booths
Seeding
I think the event will be really awesome and players will come.
Also for seeding a idea is have some online rounds 2/3 coming into a event, the top 8 or 16 from the rounds earn points for seeding. then at LAN you have 16-48 players with points and you can seed a fair few.
Another idea with the seeding is have the top 1 or 2 seeded players get free flights to perth, this will attract top players from outside of WA to come compete in RFLan.

This all depends on how much eSports $$$ you have though

Thanks, I believe in that as well too.

As listed above, some of those are listed in Level 2 or Level 3 priority, so fingers cross in time, we hope to improve those aspects of the game, not only for the players but for the community as well.

In regards to online rounds, Yes I have read many tournaments hold online qualifications to weed down the top 16 or top 8 and battle out for top dog in the arena. In all honesty, it is currently quite hard to organize that, as a single admin and yes you can could arguably say hire more people right? But for those who are not aware, RFLAN is a non-profit organization and any money that goes into the event will only be for the event itself, not for any of the staff as we volunteer our time to run the event. So I guess my response to online qualification at this point in time is that fact that, time is against me and at this point in time, it would not be viable, however if a solution does some how arise to let me hold online qualifications? Then no problems at all.

And to answer the last statement, yes it is all about the bling bling dollar dollar yo. I would say, baby steps for now and hope what the future has install for us!

Thanks for the feed back, hope to see you at RFLAN!

Quick Comments

TtSYF.tRoy:

Yea single staff is harder, volunteers is the answer.

[nomad]

I have always loved going to rflan and am always looking forward to the next one. If you wanted to do the online qualification I will volunteer my time to help you out.

[HarK0nNeN]

Originally Posted by nomad

I have always loved going to rflan and am always looking forward to the next one. If you wanted to do the online qualification I will volunteer my time to help you out.

Hey Thanks! Once we get that baneling rolling, I will look into online qualifiers as an intergrated part of the competition in future events. I will keep your name at the back of your mind!

Thanks for the support!

[x5.Armi]

Hey man,

Best run RF SC2 comp I've been part of to date.

Despite the award ceremony going on in the middle of the winners bracket final, which I know you tried your hardest to stop, I had an absolute blast.

Seeding is definitely going to be good for future play, my only real suggestion would be an attempted schedule, obviously with some matches taking longer it might be hard to maintain, but having every round start an hour after the previous up to the bo5's could work well?

I am trying to gather funds so I can fly back for the next rf and get my revenge on Frustration :P

[HarK0nNeN]

Originally Posted by armi

Hey man,

Best run RF SC2 comp I've been part of to date.

Despite the award ceremony going on in the middle of the winners bracket final, which I know you tried your hardest to stop, I had an absolute blast.

Seeding is definitely going to be good for future play, my only real suggestion would be an attempted schedule, obviously with some matches taking longer it might be hard to maintain, but having every round start an hour after the previous up to the bo5's could work well?

I am trying to gather funds so I can fly back for the next rf and get my revenge on Frustration :P

Hey Armi,

Thanks for coming along to the last event, it was a close finals! So hope to see you again at the next one

Yes, One of my not so fond moments, I will admit is the ceremony in the middle of the game, which was..less then desirable. I will think of things to counter that, I don't know surround the main stage with snakes until the match is over. Snakes on a stage! Sequel and Copyright by me, kthx.

I think overall, less stage presence can help "increase" the efficient of the games, plus I guess mostly the turn out to the center stage. I personally dislike asking those to bring their own computers, but as you can see we ran into slight technical problems on stage, but of course we always have been plagued with stage PC problems no matter what event, so we hope to stop that as time goes on.

So I would like to let everyone understand, who comes to this "particular" competition of SC2, we are ultimately competing with so many other competitions running "at the same time" practically. I am sure you can see the ridiculous LOL/Dota2 turn out. Plus TF2 and CS:GO not to mention. Our standard scheduling starts at 12PM, given players enough time to rock up to the event, setup, settle in comfortably ready for the competition. Given that we are not a 1 game tournament, we encourage participants in all genres they enjoy doing/playing. I like to think we are very lenient in our wait times, but of course it does cause a ripple effect through out the games, which ultimately finishes the tournament at around 2AM! huzzah..But Yes, we can do a trial scheduling in which will break the game round in stages, which could be a good idea, will investigate! I will update my above post with a scheduling.

Also, In the coming weeks, I will release updated information on new rules for the community to look over as an on going effort to keep align with other current competitions.

Once, again, thank you Armi for the support and hope to see you at the next Rflan! Let us try and go for a non PvP final kthx :P