The Team Tournament
There's no name for this tournament yet. The logo above is something I whipped up real quick. This isn't an alliance tournament, per se (though no doubt, most teams will consist of pilots from the same alliance.) CCP is positioning this as a team tournament, so some teams may consist of the best of the best, no matter which alliance they come from. Oh, the egos on that team, should something like that form.
The Big Winner
Teams get into the tournament through an auction system. There are 32 spots available. Twenty plexes are the minimum bid. I'm not quite sure how it will be run. Every eligible team makes a blind bid, and the top 32 bids get into the tournament? How then are ties handled (most teams will try to get in at the 20 plex minimum under this method)? Or will each slot be a separate auction, 32 auctions in total (this will bleed the most plex from the game)?At the very minimum, CCP removes 640 plex from the game, totalling nearly $10000. Of course, more than this will be removed. The likely average bid will be around 28 plex per team, so around 900 plex, an amount worth $13500. If 900 plex are being removed from the game, it won't be long before another 900 plex re-enter the game due to rising plex prices.
$13500 is no great amount, considering the annual revenue EVE Online generates for CCP, but it will be more than enough to cover employee overtime, infrastructure, and airfare/accomodations to fly in player commentators.
Prizes
Rather than unique ships as prizes, there'll be $10000 in prizes instead (first place will receive $6000.) Which is not all that much, considering most teams will have to split it among 10-12 people. Even though the maximum team size is 24 players, considering only 8 can fly in a match, I would be surprised if any team put forward 24 players. 10 to 15 players per team will likely be the norm.A 10 player team would see $600 per member. A 15 player team, $400 per participant. Groceries for a month (or if you're an American living in Mission Texas, a week worth of Double Downs.) That doesn't even account for the plex it takes to enter the team. In the end, this is more about the bragging rights than the cold-hard cash. I don't think a lot of people are going to try to game their way to $500.
Player Adverts
No player adverts this tournament. A shame. It's a nice showcase to new players what options are out there for the social aspect of the game, which is a large aspect of the game. EVE is one of the few MMOs that has very little appeal to the solo player, so not highlighting all the social options is an unfortunate miss for CCP if they're opting for zero player adverts this tournament.
No [shipname] allowed!
This is the coolest feature of this year's tournament. The ability to deny your opposition the use of two ship types. Have you noticed your opposition making heavy use of Sleipnirs and Harpies? Deny the ability to field them.Forty-five minutes before every match, each team will state two ship types that the opposition will be unable to field during their match. This is going to create a lot more headache for each team, but a lot more variety for the spectators. Teams are going to have to test far more set-ups, and assume that they're never going to be able to field their strongest set-ups during the tournament. Their opposition simply isn't going to let them.
I would expect a lot of misdirection in the first two weeks of the tournament. Teams attempting to win with less-than ideal set-ups in the beginning stages of the tourney so that their strongest mix of ships remain unknown and viable on the final weekend.
Double Down
No, not KFC's adventures in heart disease. But an actual double-elimination tournament. CCP is calling it a modified double-elimination tournament, I think because the final match will actually be a best-of-five mini-tournament.The weakness of the Alliance Tournament's round-robin format is that specators end up watching a lot of meaningless matches. Round-robin is simply not a very good tournament format. (Olympic badminton, anyone?) There are no meaningless matches in a double-elimination tournament.
Consider this a test-run for a change in tournament format for Alliance Tournament XI.
Multiboxing
Players may field multiple accounts per team. If a player has eight accounts they could very well field an entire team solo. Multiboxing an entire tournament team is allowed, and seemingly encouraged.I would expect someone to try this. If for the notoriety alone. If they manage to win a couple of matches, expect to see a new EVE Online folk hero, talked about in awe and admiration for years to come.
Winter Expansion
The tournament runs the weekends of November 17-18, November 24-25, and December 1-2 2012. I predict that that Winter Expansion will be released either December 4 or December 11 2012.I was originally expecting the Winter Expansion to be released mid- to late-November, but this tournament gives CCP much opportunity to drum up additional excitement about the expansion, especially to a potentially new audience of non-EVE Online players.
If they don't release Winter Expansion after the tournament, what the hell is the tournament panel going to talk about between matches? All the bugs in the winter release? Stuff they promise to fix quickly? They can't very well start talking Summer Expansion 2013, when they'll have not even gone through their sprint cycles to determine a feature set.
Player Commentators
No word yet on player commentators being flown out to Iceland. I'd be surprised if CCP didn't fly out at least a couple. Though we'll probably see fewer than we do for the Alliance Tournament. The best commentator at AT IX and AT X was Raivi, who is now CCP Fozzie. I would hope that CCP will allow him to continue commentating, even if he is a CCP employee now. It would be a shame to invalidate his expertise on the grounds of employment.
RMT Tinfoil
Stupidity was eventually going to rear its head in the tournament thread. It took only until the second page before someone donned the tinfoil hat of absurdity.The premise: someone could buy all 32 teams so that they could RMT their way to $10000 (plus 25B ISK) in prizes.
CCP tried valiantly to treat the comment as nothing but a troll, ignoring it completely. But stupid comments attract stupid people. Someone sitting at dinner, suddenly bolts upright, "A stupid thing has been posted on the EVE forums. I must agree with it." And he dashes to his computer, leaving his family slightly bewildered. CCP eventually had to respond, because the number of stupid people harping about the RMT scheme was growing at an alarming rate.
There's very little to say about this other than "As if CCP would EVER allow this to happen."
I think CCP fozzie already said on twitter that they aren't going to do player commentators for this event.
ReplyDeleteNot really miffed about it. I get the feeling they just want 'test' if they can do smaller/quicker tournaments. (quicker as in getting them organized quicker)
So as little fuss as possible, and throw in some new rules/concepts because it's a trial run anyway.
I for one don't mind a bit, even if there are going to be rough edges. Don't really see the point of cash prices, but then again all the other e-sports are doing that so *shrug*.
Maybe CCP Fozzie should do all the commentary then.
Deletesorry, was CCP Bro. Here's the source.
Delete"the commentators on this tournament will be CCP guys "
https://twitter.com/ccp_bro/status/251715980722577409
Yep. Just saw it. They've been busy while I was writing this post. They also confirmed my belief that the Winter Expansion will be released after the tournament.
DeleteErrmm... there is a logic fail in there.
ReplyDeleteYou are correct that the roughly 900 PLEXes that CCP collects will re-enter the game via newly bought PLEXes. But that still doesn't mean CCP actually gets money from both sets (as you imply when you make the jump from $13500 to $27000). CPP already got the money for the first set. (for game-time, in the end) It's only the second set they get on top of that.
(There are e few other ways to look at it, but that is the cleanest. But never could you have your first cake of PLEX and then eat the second set too.)
Bottomline, when CCP removes 900 PLEX from the system for non-account paying stuff, they only get the equivalent of 900 PLEXes worth of more income. (So $13500 - not $27000.) You can't just count them twice.
They aren't doing this (directly) for money. I actually don't think they'll make a profit. It's more an almost for free PR thing.
True. Somewhat. Some of the plex spent will come directly out of plex already existing. But some of the plex spent to get into the tourney will be bought for dollars. And those plex will still be replaced with more bought for dollars.
DeleteAt any rate, the plex is being removed and brought into the system via an artificial means, rather than leaving and entering the system "naturally."
If PLEX are bought directly for the tournament... they don't get replaced by anything (as they don't drive up the price of PLEX in game. As far as Jita is concerned, nothing ever happened).
DeleteRight now, I could buy a million PLEX from CCP and then directly transfer them to a CCP character ... and nobody would notice anything (except CCP accounts and Hilmar jumping up and down in joy). CCP would get the money for a million PLEXes, but not more than that.
Somebody entering the tourney by buying PLEX from CCP is giving them the entry fee directly.
Somebody entering the tournament by buying PLEX from the market is giving them the fee indirectly (via later buyers of PLEX due to increased PLEX prices).
Still, CCP only gets the money once.
Yeah. You're right. I'll change the post to state only $13500. Not double that.
Delete