[DarkEvil]

Hello pilots,

Gladiators is again back for a 3rd season! However, this season will be unlike any other... with Armor Critical's first ever Cash Tournament! The idea behind the tournament is to create some intense competition, as well as possibly bringing back older players to compete in the tournament. The funding for the tournament will be from community donations and money collected from the sale of icons.

Prize Pool:$1800
Cash Handouts: The following is the cash distribution for team placements. All prizes are listed per-team.

1st Place - $600
2nd Place - $450
3rd Place - $300
4th Place - $150
5th Place - $120
6th Place - $90
7th Place - $60
8th Place - $30

Team Size: All games that will be played will be played in a 3v3 style. This is to distribute high skill-levels among various teams instead of stacking a lot of good players on one team. Your roster size, however, may have a minimum of 3 players and a maximum of 5. It's the team's responsibility to split the prize among the entire team.

Maps: Maps, the big question. As we are still discussing the maps to be used in the tournament, we are sure that most, if not all of these maps will be go-style maps. Currently, we are sticking to Capture the Flag only.

Schedule: All games will be played on the weekend, due to higher volumes of players being available at that time. If rescheduling is needed, all adjustments must be made the week prior to the game.

Signups: Signups will begin on October 27th at 12:00 AM EST until November 5th at 11:59PM . You must designate a Team Captain per-team and have a minimum of 3 players and a maximum of 5.

Feel free to hang out with us in the gladiators lobby! (/join gladiators)
More information regarding the tournament will be posted soon.
Good Luck!

[eekum]

Lame is that you are going to have ringer squads put together.

[Bone]

Neat idea, and good luck with it.

Can't say I don't necessarily agree with the above comments though. I know $1800 isn't anything big when it comes to development and/or advertising and such, but I just think I'd rather see the money put to some better use. I don't think people donated to see their money dished out to other players for winning a tournament. Especially if a significant portion of it ends up in the pockets of people who are seriously inactive or flat out don't play anymore at all.

Even if you took the money and paid for servers for the next x amount of months (however long $1800 lasts), that I'm sure would greatly ease the burden on people who are fronting the costs. I'm sure they'd greatly appreciate such an offer.

If it actually is meant as a "last hoorah" for ARC and you just want to see the game go out in a bang, then it probably is the best solution I suppose. You very well may see the biggest activity spike in a long time, and many old familiar faces. This only seems like a good idea though if you have zero expectations on what happens with ARC post-tournament. The activity will decline again, and most old faces will leave again. Then you'll have no donation money again, and who would want to donate further down the road if this is what it's expected use is to be?

[cyro]

[CloudS]

So who are the brains behind this operation? I think they have some explaining to do..

[castiel]

How about make a poll first?

[tigur]

Free Agents or Undecided players, Look here: http://www.critical-hq.net/showthread.php?tid=728

I look forward to this tournament and hope everybody will play.

[eekum]

Does the community not have a say in this at all?

Seems pretty apparent a lot of players don't want to use the money for this.

[Odoacer]

(10-27-2014, 04:39 AM)CloudS Wrote:  So who are the brains behind this operation? I think they have some explaining to do..

I'll take credit for that. I'm sure everyone is happy to see a league so I'm assuming all the negativity is about the money.

For those bitching about the money not going to development: what kind of development do you think that money really buys? What do you think developers cost? Give it to me to pay for roughly two of the countless days of work I've put in. Then I will put it into this tournament. Otherwise, it's going to sit around for another year doing nothing but depreciating -- if the game lasts another year.

As for advertising, what kind of return do you think we would get ? Some click-throughs which would result in a tiny percentage of people signing up, then an even tinier percentage sticking around for more than 5 minutes. The best plans we've discussed for growing the game are Steam and Reddit campaigns; those are free and still on the table.

I'll make a deal with the existing players. If you want to make this a non-cash tournament, we can do that. Then when it's over I'm gone. I'm tired of fighting all the negative people who bitch at every single thing that's done, and logging on to see fewer and fewer people every day. You can go back to having inactive ops, no development, and a continuously shrinking player base if that's what you really want. The bright side is that you'll have a small amount of money in a bank account that none of you will ever agree on how to use.

Decide now. I have other things I could be doing.

[Bone]

As I said above, I already know $1800 is pennies in terms of development/advertising. I think that's a known fact among everyone here, or it should be at least by now.

I will say this, it's a DONATION. Regardless what the person donating it imagined it being used for, that's irrelevant. It's for ARC to use now however they see fit. That's the whole concept of donations. That's why I think if this is the decision ARC staff has made, then so be it. Nobody else really has a say.

My only thing is stating how realistic expectations should be regarding this. It's a pipe dream if anyone realistically thinks this will bring back and KEEP old players around. They may be enticed to come back for money, but they left for a reason. That reason doesn't change by throwing dollar signs in their face one time. My one question is this: is it safe to say staff is accepting the unlikelihood ARC has a future? All the community has heard is how new players are the future if this game is to survive, but this tournament is obviously geared towards the older community. Quite the drastic change, and I think that's why you are seeing such a backlash right out the gate regarding this league.