[ICA] Intergalactic Clan Arena: Master Thread

[Oven]

The Intergalactic Clan Arena

Motivation: To create an ongoing, highly interactive and enjoyable network for competitive but friendly SWBF1 gameplay.

Note: This thread will be the master thread for all ICA activity; no separate week-by-week threads as in the ICW. (If things get confusing, I may change this.) If anything in this post is unclear, please let me know. It may take a week or two to get used to this system, but I believe that it will run quite fluidly once we get the hang of it. If not, then we will brainstorm even better solutions.

Definition: A team is a collection of players with a representative. A team may be a clan, a subset of a clan, a group of friends, etc.

Definition: A representative is a swbfgamers.com member who posts on behalf of a team.

Definition: A battle is a SWBF1 game specified by the following information:

• Name of challenging (posting) team
• Name of challenged team or open challenge (see below)
• Map (Examples: Mos Eisley, Dantooine, Polis Massa)
• Team Count
• Era
• Side
• Rules of Engagement
• Server modifications and settings
• List of acceptable admins from the list
• Date
• Time in EST
• Server Host (Led is default; outside hosts must be approved by both reps)

Definition: An Admin is someone who adjudicates battles according to their intended rules, etc.

Note: Anyone may ask me to be an admin at any time; I will almost certainly approve. Approved admins will be added to the list at the bottom of this post.

Definition: An announcement is a post made, in this thread, by a representative, and which specifies a battle.

Definition: An open challenge is an announcement where the announcer does not specify an opponent.

Definition: A team confirmation is a reply to an announcement, made by a team representative, which agrees to the battle conditions. A refusal is a reply in the negative.

Definition: An Admin confirmation is a reply to a team confirmation, made by an admin from the announcement list, which agrees to make a good effort to attend the battle.

Note: I encourage as many admins as possible to confirm battles (provided, of course, you really are available). The idea is to have a setup that is as robust as possible with respect to IRL difficulties on the part of admins. I can attest that such difficulties have a tendency to arise at the worst possible times.

Rule 1: Confirmations may be made by the challenged team (if one is specified), or by any team (if the announcement is an open challenge.)

Rule 2: If a challenged team refuses an announcement without making some sort of counter-offer, the proposed battle becomes an open challenge.

Rule 3: Battles will be held only if a team confirmation and an admin confirmation are posted.

Rule 4: Confirmations must be made at least 48 hours before their intended battle time. Furthermore; the representative of a challenging team must inform Buckler (xfire: rtlbuckler), via PM, xfire, etc., of the battle information at least 48 hours before the intended battle time. Servers will, of course, be hosted by SWBGamers.

Rule 5: There is no minimum or maximum to the number of announcements a team may make in a given period of time; as long as you can really get players and admins to show up, there is no problem. If this becomes a problem, I will enforce a limit. (I do not anticipate a problem.)

Rule 6: Default Rules of Engagement are the standard rules from the ICW; they are listed near the end of this post. Deviations from these rules are fine, as long as both teams agree on them. Similar remarks apply to server settings and modifications.

Note: Here are some important differences between the ICA and the ICW:
-- No tournament planet map
-- No tournament planet list
-- No overall "winner"
-- No specified player maximum
-- No official clan list. Any clan or ragtag team of you and your friends can pop in and challenge whoever you want
-- No battle requirement. Schedule battles when you want to.
-- Admin setup (detailed below)

Weekly Community Battles

Note: This section is tentative and subject to significant revision over the next couple days.

Each weekend, SWBFGamers will host community battles. The Rules and Server Settings will be default. The player list will be open ended; anyone may show up (or fail to show up) at the designated time. Teams will be divided arbitrarily by an admin in a buffer map.

In the first couple weeks, I want the community battles to be on stock maps so that anyone who is online may participate without worrying about downloads. Later, we will start to alternate between "Stock Weeks" and "Mod Weeks", or something. There are a number of open questions.

There will be a poll each week, at the top of this thread, which determines the two maps.

So: Each weekend we will host an ICA Community Battles server which rotates 2 maps. Battles will be held at the following times:

Friday: 8 EST
Saturday: 4 EST
Sunday: 12 EST

Are these good times?

Thus, at battle time, the admin divides the teams, and the two battles are played. Of course, players may stay in the server after the two battles, but only count on official administration for two.

Expect more information regarding the community battles soon.

Default Rules of Engagement:
A. No special units (this means droideka, clone jet, empire jet, and wookie). Trooper, Rocket, Pilot, and Sniper classes are always permitted.
B. Vehicles are permitted in all situations.
C. Capturing CPs is permitted in all situations.
D. Pre-mines are not permitted in any situation, and laying pre-mines amounts to an automatic forfeiture.
E. Spawn mines are permitted.
F. Teamkill is always off.
G. All servers shall be /noaim.
H. No swearing.
I. No false starts.
J. Only an admin may countdown a battle.
K. No playing with an amount of players that violates the rules above.
L. No impersonating other clan members.
M. All players must wear tags ingame.
N. Radar is not permitted.

Default Server Settings:
A. TK off
B. Antiglitch where possible
C. /noaim
C. No additional server mods. Stock sides, CP capture enabled, etc.

Server Host:
Buckler (rtlbuckler)

Admin list:
Anyder (anyder21)
Oven (ovenlovesyou)
Nixo (nixo1)
Norris (212norris)
RepublicCommando (rccommandotac)
Roxas (roxas187)
Scorpion (5shadowclaw)

I need way more admins! Don't hesitate! The ICA will not last unless there is a large pool of potential admins.

[Roxas]

This sounds really good. I offer my services as an admin, but, I can't guarantee the timing so I would have to see the match time before I could agree to anything. It is good timing for me on the Fridays because 8pm EST is 5pm PST so I should be able to hop on hopefully on Fridays and have fun with you guys (and girls).

[Oven]

This sounds really good. I offer my services as an admin, but, I can't guarantee the timing so I would have to see the match time before I could agree to anything.

Absolutely; no admin is obliged to be at any particular match. I just want to create a lengthy list of people who are willing, when they are up for it and the time is convenient.

[SirPimped]

Great work Oven. I look forward to playing more matches!

[Anyder]

Idk if u said this (but I didnt find it)
Is this for 1vs1 ? XvsX ?

[Shazam]

I would much rather participate in this as a player, not an admin. But, if I just-so-happen to be online for an entire weekend and there are a variety of matches, I can admin a few.

Would it be an issue if the admins got to "pick and choose" the battles they want to admin and play in? Maybe you could implement a system where you can request "X" amount of admins for a specific map and also have 2-4 admins set aside that will participate, but can admin if some of the pre-determined admins don't show.

Idk if u said this (but I didnt find it)
Is this for 1vs1 ? XvsX ?

Team vs Team

I read all of the rules above, and I don't think it specifies a certain amount of players for each team. If it was up to me, I would allow as many people to participate as possible, as long as the teams have an even amount of players.

[Anyder]

If i can get some UEF's maybe we can participate, if not idk what i'll do
Maybe play with iSexy | or just dont play

[-=(212) Nixo=-]

The Intergalactic Clan Arena
Friday: 8 EST
Saturday: 4 EST
Sunday: 12 EST

Are these good times?

Not for me I could only make the 4est one and I am usually busy on saturday's What about two battle times for each day? So for example:
4&8EST Friday
2&6EST Saturday
3&5EST Sunday

[Helios]

Mos and cloud city is what i voted

[Black Water]

I am with Nixo. 8 is to late for me on friday. On saturday I could make it. On sunday no because that is church time

[Shazam]

If i can get some UEF's maybe we can participate, if not idk what i'll do
Maybe play with iSexy | or just dont play

I don't think you understand, Anyder. You don't have to be in a "clan" at all, that is the beauty of this idea. You can participate in the community battles (see the first post) and/or with a set team of players in the main part of the tourney.

Not for me I could only make the 4est one and I am usually busy on saturday's What about two battle times for each day? So for example:
4&8EST Friday
2&6EST Saturday
3&5EST Sunday

I like Nixo's idea, but I think we should wait a few weeks to see how many members will be participating. We wouldn't want to plan too many battles and not have enough people show up to make it a good match.

I may be misunderstood, but seems to me that most of you don't realize that the ICA basically has two sub-tournaments; one is for those who wish to play with their clan/team against other clans/teams, and the community matches are for those of you who want to play with random people against another group of random people.

If you can't make it to the pre-scheduled community battles, I'd try to either make a team or get your clan to participate in clan/team matches.

[Oven]

Maybe in the future we can add more community battle times, but we'll need to see how things go at first. Plus we need more admins. Also, don't be disappointed if you can only make 1 of the community battle times - the point is to have a spread of times that will enable to greatest amount of people to make at least 1 time.

Please read the OP carefully if you are genuinely interested in the ICA; I'm pretty sure all questions asked so far would be answered by a careful reading of the definitions and rules. Like I said, it will take a week or two for us to get the hang of things.

If certain parts of the rules seem "unspecified", that's because they really are unspecified. Anyder asks, "XvX"? The answer is yes. There is no specified team limit for the team battles - that's for the teams to decide.

Remember that there is no "signing up". Any team may post an announcement, in this thread, at any time. If Peanut and his 3 best friends want to play a match with SirPimped and his 3 best friends on Tranquaan, Peanut just needs to post the info, find an admin from the list, get SP to agree, and inform Led of the server details 2 days in advance. If 212 wants to play a match with YAK on Hoth, they just need to post

I believe that, after the burn-in period, this system will become a natural part of this site and community. It will be second-nature. The important thing is that everyone understands their part.

I may be misunderstood, but seems to me that most of you don't realize that the ICA basically has two sub-tournaments; one is for those who wish to play with their clan/team against other clans/teams, and the community matches are for those of you who want to play with random people against another group of random people.

Exactly! Perhaps grouping both of these components under the ICA heading has led to confusion; again, I believe that once people have had experience with the system the confusion will evaporate.

Would it be an issue if the admins got to "pick and choose" the battles they want to admin and play in? Maybe you could implement a system where you can request "X" amount of admins for a specific map and also have 2-4 admins set aside that will participate, but can admin if some of the pre-determined admins don't show.

This is precisely what I envision. That's why I want at least a dozen people on the admin list.

[Phobos]

can admins still play in battles or no?

[-=(212) Nixo=-]

can admins still play in battles or no?

I dont think so unless it is agreed upon by both teams

[Oven]

can admins still play in battles or no?

As long as both teams agree, sure. In particular, for the Community Battles, the Admins may play.

That's the idea Nixo! The ICA is pretty different from the ICW. Relatively few things are set in stone. The important thing is that two teams can agree on conditions and times. If you guys can reach this agreement, we promise to provide a server as well as a list of people who are willing to oversee things (admins).