DDR:UK Beginner and Expert Championships Open this October 2011

Taken from DDR:UK

"Hi all its almost that time of year again!

At the October expo this year we will once again be running an open tournament like last year, only this time we are giving you all enough notice about it to turn up rather than rushing it together on the last day!
It will be on the Saturday at around midday, you can register at any time Friday or Saturday just come looking for me (Kris) or ask any of the friendly members of staff and one of them will definitely be able to point you in the right direction!

The rule set will be similar to the one we used last year in that its on an equal ground for all beginner and expert players (In case you weren’t there, last year the top 3 were someone who played on difficult, someone who had never played on a machine before and one of the members of staff who were filling in to give us an even number. In that order) so everyone has a chance to win, and for the added incentive this year we have the championship trophy to play for as well as a number of minor prizes for entrants who make it past certain rounds!

More in-depth rules and details are available here:

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=123806304383385

Register your interest there and feel free to ask ANY questions about the tournament. Looking forward to hearing from you all and seeing you there!"

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I almost felt inclined to go, but the fact that they just randomly removed people who wanted in on Facebook makes me apprehensive that the people running it are the people I wanna spend a day with. So I'll pass.

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Okay, that's just ridiculous. Why am I banned? I wasn't even going to compete (I haven't really played all that much in the last couple of years so I didn't see the point), I was just coming to see everyone in the hope that people had moved on and matured from the events that soured the community... Ah well.

I've been told that the rules of entry have been changed since I was banned from the event. Fair enough, I'm not allowed to compete but for god sake either message us and tell us the reason why we've been removed from the event (granted, would be hard for Kris as he's *still* got me blocked for some bizarre reason), or, you know, don't remove us and message the event attendees letting them know of the rule change. It's *not* difficult to do things like this and communicate them.

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I'm 100% certain that it's Kris Pearman's doing. Why else have me and several people in our social circle been blocked from the page and banned from competing?
I'm certain the 'rule' about people who have ranked highly in previous tournaments was specified to block us entering.

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And of course, banning those who are a bit good is really the definition of an "open tournament".

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Hey everyone! let's have a fun tournament but here's the kicker. YOU CAN'T BE IN IT! Kind of kills the point of a tournament if your going to yank people out of it for ___________ (insert blank). Call it the DDR UK My friends get in event.

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In the slightly more sane world of showjumping, organisers would just create a "champion" division, for players who are obviously far above the level of other players. It's an exhibition of the best of the best players in the area, and when you win the main tournament, you "graduate" to the champions division, and become ineligable to enter the main tournament.

I assume it's some sort of personal issue from the oranisers? Because explicitly disassociating players from the event completely is just silly.

Before this upcoming Expo, I couldn't be bothered with this one; I quit tournaments since last year. Saw the rules and thought "this is a no brainer, I love fun tournaments, maybe I'll enter", but then once I discovered the amount of circle jerking involved I decided to count myself out. Guess I'll just stick to cosplaying then.

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What's wrong with knowing right off the bat you're not going to get first? Have that loser's bracket. And you may beat somebody good anyhow / be surprised by your ranking.

I've been to a few ITG tournaments and, although I've only been playing for about three years, I always had fun and placed better than I thought I would (though never high enough to win, there's too many insane players on the East Coast haha)

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"there's too many insane players on the East Coast haha"
At least you're not from Socal. I imagine qualifying would be a bitch over there haha.

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Right im just gonna sort this out quickly:

1) When i changed the entry requirements i did it against my better nature, i wanted to enter to and now i cant but i did it because i got complaints from people saying "I wont enter, the usual crowd will win" as a result a good 15 people have decided to turn up for it who otherwise wouldnt have done so, vs the 4/5 pro players which arent enough to warrant a seperate champions bracket.
2) I didnt block or remove anyone from the event. I know WHO has been blocked or removed from the event based on people posting about it and general comments i see in this thread but those people are all invisible to my facebook profile so i couldnt even see they were marked as entering.
3) I plan on having a proper championship next year which will compensate if we only have 2 expert players turning up but it requires me having a complete set of accurate scores from the lower levels in order for me to calculate the best way of giving all players even ground without having to force people to play on different difficulties. IE if a beginner player got say 2 greats on 5.1.1 light but couldnt pass it on difficult, where do we put them ? Beginner bracket or the next one up? My idea for next year SHOULD cover all the angles and make it fair on everyone.
4) I'd LIKE to change it from saying OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP but i dont know what to change it to, seriously. Give me suggestions that fit all the criteria and ill do it.
5) I know a number of people have slagged it off because of the changes in rules etc, but you know what would you rather there be a semi closed tournament that people can watch and enjoy then next year we start to bring it back properly or would you rather there were no more tournaments on the DDRUK stand ever? Because im the only person who is actually putting effort into setting one up, if people dont like it they can make their own and ill step out the way. Simple as that.

Should answer every question/complaint really. Im pissed that its gone this way but we havent had a tournament with this much interest since 2009. Any queries put them in here and ill answer them if i can but if people are going to carry on being this negative about me trying to bridge gaps between beginner , expert and eventually pro players then ill just not bother, seriously.

Michael would happily run a "Pro" tournament given the chance.

As far as I see it now, people were genuinely interested in tournament similar to the 08' scale but when the rules were changed so did the interest.

Make it viable for people of all skill levels and you'll have have my vote.

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Michael was given a chance in 2010 May and October, and again May this year, i even offered to help him out with it last year all the way through it and then at the last second he just said he wasnt going to be at the expo, he has other tournaments lined up anyway.

If you dont want to turn up you dont have to, i already said in may i'll have it fixed for everyone you'll just have to do without or turn up as support in october unless i get at least 8 players of our skill level agreeing to enter.

Whilst I can echo your point about encouraging "beginner" players to compete etc, its a bit daft getting blocked from competing (and the fb group) for no apparent reason, especially when you factor in past grudges as well.

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Someone quietely asked me to post my professional opinion here, after explaining it to them.

Firstly, if you're overwhelmed, you can hire a professional Event Manager to either run, or plan out a tournament like this. Quickplay Event Staff are probably the best in the UK, specialise in TCG / Videogame tournaments, and would likely work with DDR:UK for next to nothing. Gamers inc. are another option, and have lots of connections to Konami, but probably aren't suited to the nature of the tournament.

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If you're really only getting 8 players to show up, you can run a Swiss tournament. Players who are travelling hundreds of miles to play will much prefer Swiss, and it lets you stretch out your tournament to a meaningful ammount of time.

(Assuming each matchup consists of best-of-three songs, and having each round accomodate an average of 4 minutes of players fucking around on the song select, or not showing up for their match on time)

Upto 08 Players - 3 rounds / 120 minutes
Upto 16 players - 4 rounds / 320 minutes

These are the upper limit times for a badly run tournament. If the organiser is prompt and capable, you can cut a 16-player tournament down to just under 5 hours. Once people lose interest or become frustrated with their results, the field will probably be trimmed by half during the final round, although you should obviously still allow the upper time limit, and only start the next tournament at the advertised time.

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As far as excluding people, you should take a no-nonsense approach, and hold 3 tournaments. Make sure all of them have a small prize the winner can be proud to take home :

Novice (Trick)
Expert (Maniac)
Legend (Maniac)

Find out who is qualified / planning on showing up, and hand-pick the best people for the Legend bracket. Pick people like K-Dogg and Stelisevil, who are obviously going to get close to AAA'ing their songs. Put all the previous winners into this catagory. It's the main event, and they should be honored to be there, even if they come last.

Let everyone else choose whether to enter either the Novice or Expert tournament. Only let them enter one. Set clear guidelines (eg. Can the player pass any of a list of songs on a certain difficulty). If players underestimate their skill, then that's fine. If a player is blatantly lying about his skill level, then inform them that you're impressed by their skills, and that they've earned a promotion to the Expert bracket. Remove them from the bracket, and have their opponents play an extra round at the end of the tournament to make up for the missing match. Play the Novice tournament first, or this obviously isn't possible.

The Expert tournament would probably contain the bulk of your entries, and the tournament where you'll have the most trouble with player management. Even if you get closee to 16, you probably still want to run it as swiss, as it's the tournament where you're likely to see the most players drop out after one or two defeats. The last round will probably consist only of the two undefeated players, and people who have multiple losses, but are still playing, because they'd be proud to call themselves "The #5 ranked Expert player in the UK". All of these people deserve your time more than the people who drop out.

The Legends tournament is obviously invitation-only, and so you can set the size of it on Day 1. Perhaps let all players register for the other 2 tournaments, and after registration is over, and you can survey the tournament field, you can pick the 3/6/8 players you feel belong in their own tournament, and put up a list next to the stand.

If anyone complains, then fuck them. They should be honored to be considered a cut above the rest.

If anyone in the Expert bracket complains about not making the cut for the Legends bracket, then fuck them too. They can win the Expert tournament and earn their spot in the next Legends tournament.

When you're done, make sure you post the full rankings for each tournament in as many places as you possibly can, so everyone gets to see their name in print. The psychological effect of this is immense, and for various reasons, will generate ridiculous ammounts of interest in a potential "next" tournament.

All problems solved? Everyone gets to play multiple competitive games of DDR, without feeling ripped off. All the players who are genuinly in it for fun get to go home happy, and anyone who leaves feeling pissed off can either reconsider their attitude, or blame themselves for their shortcomings.

The key problem is there are only 3 pro players who wanted to turn up, thats not even remotely enough for even a swiss tournament to be ran on one dedicated machine for the day, factor in the fact they dont make any money from this so they cant afford to get a third party to run it. The majority of "legend" players as you put it arent available or dont want to enter, for example k-Dogg you mentioned doesnt do tournaments anymore and stelisevil i havent even seen in about 3 years. The ONLY reason ive taken them out completely is because literally it would be just 3 to 4 players, and thats it so if you have an alternative for that i'd love to hear it. But for now the majority seem happy with just a generic ladder for the two different groups to play on, then in may ill have either a seperate ladder for expert players or ill indulge in a round robin/swiss layout OR impose a handicap system for the beginner players so they at least have a fighting chance of making it through.

Also Ian, i dont know why you were blocked from the event as i already mentioned i cant see you adam josh lee kevin or any of your guys on facebook AT ALL so it must have been one of the other admins set up. Doesnt matter anyway if you're turning up you're turning up I dont need to know about it! Its only there to put the word out to people coming to the expo who wouldnt have already been aware of it.

Fair do's.

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I came like 7th LOL

Congrats to Hyrule Field Dinosaurs, Wildfireskunk, and (winner) who won!

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This.
Anyways, I entered the tourney on the day and it was a good laugh (especially my first round. I got paired up with a fat bloke cosplaying as Ren! XD). As I said on the event's wall on FB. The only gripe I had was that the organiser did not state the "you fail your song" rule. Also, YOU AND YOUR RANDOM NUMBER GENERATOR ARE EVIL. Me and Wolfie got Paranoia ~hades~ as a tie-breaker song

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Well, HFD got PSMO as his tie breaker so...

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