Blood Bowl - ** f13 League, Season #2 ** (Over! We have a winner!)

[Der Helm]

Aez (Reigning champion)

Hey! I would have stomped him, had I been able to get the game again. But since their customer service decided to ignore my inquiries about a new download link I was not able to reinstall the game since the last match I played way back then.

And I don't have enough money to  rebuy this new edition.

[Falconeer]

Helm, that's a shame. You were good at this game.

And yay avaia. You are the 12th.

Still 2 (or 4) places available! Join up, chaps!

[ezrast]

I managed to successfully play - well, successfully connect and then unsuccessfully play (I hope you guys are as terrible as you say you are) - a game online, so I guess that means I'm good to go. I just have to decide on a team, and then learn to play them in 2 minutes.

[Teleku]

Last week to sign up.

Biggest disappointments so far, the absence of Aez (Reigning champion), Hoax and Azazel (wannabe winnarz), Trippy, Xuri and ezrast (own the game but didn't sign up for the League).

We are 11 by the way, meaning one too short and one too many. League needs even numbers.

Hoax is still serving a 1 month ban for Politics forum shenanigans.  Not sure when its up.

[Falconeer]

Last week to sign up.

Biggest disappointments so far, the absence of Aez (Reigning champion), Hoax and Azazel (wannabe winnarz), Trippy, Xuri and ezrast (own the game but didn't sign up for the League).

We are 11 by the way, meaning one too short and one too many. League needs even numbers.

Hoax is still serving a 1 month ban for Politics forum shenanigans.  Not sure when its up.

Oh...

[Falconeer]

We got ezrast too. We are 13 now. We totally need a 14th (or three more to get to 16).

Hoax ban should be lifted on November 10th. Anyone has a way to try and contact him before that?

[Falconeer]

I'm off to Paris for 3 days. I'll be back on Monday. Keep signing up! I'll sort your mails and update the OP as soon as I'll be back.

6 days to League kickoff!

[Falconeer]

2 days to kickoff!

We DESPERATELY need another Coach (even numbers, or League doesn't work)! Please someone, anyone, step up. Or find a real life friend, get him/her a copy and blackmail him/her into playing. Quick!

Plus, Eldaec and IainC, I still need your PM with an email address to formally sign you up. Otherwise, I'll write you off. Seriously? 

[Modern Angel]

Worst case double up a dummy team that autoloses to anyone they play.

[Falconeer]

Only if we go with a single pool. Which would mean 12 match/weeks total, not counting playoffs. Isn't that too long?

Yes, I agree that the longer a Blood Bowl League the better, but players who are doing bad are known to lose interest pretty early, so I was aiming for two pools of 7 teams. What do you all think?

[Modern Angel]

Two pools would probably be ideal given how every league I've ever been in goes. Can always have one of the truly dedicated take two teams.

[eldaec]

Just sent  a pm, or possibly two, weird shit happened. btw if anyone is ever trying to reach me, pms here or posting in threads will get to me much faster. I'm terrible at checking email.


Regarding the format, I'd even consider 3 pools, then start a second season almost immediately while play offs for pool winners run concurrently.

Reading around, I'd also try to run the competition as manually as you can - set up the pools as separate leagues and the playoffs as an independent knockout competition. People are having all sorts of trouble with the automated competitions. This has an added advantage that you can spread around more trophies and have payouts for winning/second in the pools.

If we don't have even numbers I think you can create a dummy team and immediately kick it out of the competition, which sets all the results to 0-0.

[Teleku]

Sure, my good friend Ukelet would be interested in creating another team to help even the league.   

[Falconeer]

The idea of two separated Leagues due to technical deficiencies on the software part makes me sad. I'd stick to one League of two pools, but exactly what kind of issues have you read of about automated competitions?

If we can't get a 14th member we'll add a fake team in one of the two pools and we'll kick it immediately. A coach with two teams is a nice idea, but it takes some feverish healthy rage away from the ONE TEAM against all kind of tournament that I'd like to grow.

In the meantime, if IainC doesn't show up by tomorrow, we'll have to drop him and cut down to 12 coaches anyway.

[Ingmar]

When do you think this would be starting? I am interested but I have a bunch of holiday travel whatnot in November and December and probably couldn't play my matches in a timely manner until January. I should probably just wait until the next time.

[Falconeer]

That sucks, Ingmar.

All the info you require are in the opening post. Matches would be one every 9 days, arranged between the coaches according to a predefined randomized schedule. Timer starts running on November 11th. First game has to be played before November 20th, second by November 29th, and so on. Based on the actual roster each coach will play a minimum of 6 games not counting playoffs, so the whole thing should be over by the end of January.

See what you can do! There will certainly be a f13 League Season #3, unless I destroy everyone and they all chicken out.

[Ingmar]

Yeah that won't work out for me, then, unless I just forfeit a couple weeks where I'll be gone the whole time. I will just have to save the savage beatdowns for the next season. 

[Falconeer]

Addition to the Rules (this is going to be edited into the Opening Post):  

The League will be observing a 12 days break during Holiday season, so the 9 days counter will be frozen on December 23 2010, and will resume running on January 3rd 2011.

[Modern Angel]

Yeah, not like next season won't be going and maybe have more/fewer teams.

Two leagues is absolutely no go. It's hard enough getting people to finish one. If the technical stuff becomes an issue we'll look at it then but I'd prefer to see us do it on the up and up first.

[eldaec]

Problems I was talking about mostly refer to competitions freezing or not paying out at the end of phases. Some people seem to have had issues with promotion/relegation mechanics.

It doesn't seem to collapse in mid pool - and I have no idea how common the problems I see people posting actually are, so worst case you can always reconstruct playoffs however you'd like them if a problem arises.

[proudft]

So if you do two pools of 7, there'd be 6 games plus maybe 5 playoff games?  (14->7->4?->2->1)  Am I understanding this right?   Sorry, I'm not a big sports person.    

Just trying to pick a damn team.   If the max is 11 games, I could probably pick anything though. 

[Modern Angel]

Two pools of seven would be six games, yes. Playoffs would be set by the manager, anything from top two to everyone. I'd think top four or top eight would be best.

[proudft]

MUMMIES IT IS.  Unless I change my mind back to high elves.  Or lizards.   Christ, I should just roll a d20.

[Falconeer]

2 pools of seven means top 2 from each pool advance to the Semifinals. Doing the top 4 of each pool, with a pool of 6 teams (seventh being a fake one) doesn't sound that exciting (I don't like a playoff made of 8 teams out of 13 participants).

So each team will play from a minimum of 6 matches to a maximum of 8.

[Falconeer]

13 confirmed participants so far.

Last day to sign up, you lazy gits!


(Damn, 13 coaches for the f13 League? We should make this a feature)

[Xuri]

Hrm.

Okay, what the heck. Sign me up!

[Falconeer]

Awesome!

Apparently we can't make 2 pools with 14 teams, so I set up a 16 teams League with 2 dummy teams, which will be kicked as soon as the season start. Which is not even that bad, as it will give an extra "bye" week to each Coach. The League is created at the moment, so you can start making your teams and applying in game. I am sending you right now via email the password and the instructions to join.

Please do so AS SOON AS POSSIBLE so we will be able to start right away on November 11th.

Note that there is still room for 2 coaches, should anyone decide to join last minute.

[Modern Angel]

Hot!

I want to repeat something: FORWARD YOUR PORTS EVEN IF YOU ARE IN THE DMZ OR RUN WITH YOUR ROUTER OPEN! DO IT NOW, DO IT AHEAD OF YOUR FIRST MATCH!

Their packet code seems to be stupid for direct connect games. Refer to the links I provided when I said this the first time. (I'll repeat them here once I have a baby off my lap)

[proudft]

There's a new patch today, too.  Info here, up on Steam "soon" for those of us with the Steam version:

http://www.cyanide-studio.com/forumBB/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=23035

Edit: and ha ha, can't even log into multiplayer until it's updated.  Oh well, more time to mull which team to pick, I guess.

[Comstar]

Err, I got an email with your Steam Name, but not the first one with the actual details.

[Ruvaldt]

Did you check your spam filter?  I know that is where I found the initial email.

[Falconeer]

Ruvaldt and Comstar, are your emails case sensitive? And is first letter of your address Capitals or not?

[Ruvaldt]

It's not case-sensitive, but it doesn't really matter.  I've since set the spam filter to not be so vigilant regarding emails you send me.

[Comstar]

Well my spam filter ate it, which is weird, so please reword it and send it again. Or PM it to me. Or both.

[avaia]

Well I see someone already took orcs (EZ MODE), so I will go necro.