Winter Break Gaming: Super Smash, Retro Octathalon ][, DDR, Pokémon and More!

OK, this thread is CLOSED. Get out of here, you rapscallions.

Just kidding. Let me see if I can shed a little light on this vibrant discussion.

First, I have provided a service in this thread to both Lain and FJW, who calmed down and wanted to edit posts that were no longer editable. I very much appreciate that sentiment and the high level of class that it demonstrates. They posted angry, but they calmed down and wanted to make amends, so, I have "snorked" their posts for them at their request. This service is available to anyone on request who wishes to retract coarse language posted in the heat of the moment. Enough about that.

Second, we already have scheduled a Kart-only tournament, as Limabean mentioned, it's in the new AXIS flyer. It's Friday Night, May 25th, at 6 PM. I'm not quite sure how we'll run it yet, I'd like to do some pool experimentation, more on that later.

I would not agree that Mario Kart (or monkey ball) are poor tournament games. It just depends on your perspective. One perspective says that tournaments exist to be a pure measure of raw skill, and any elements of the game that could result in a superior player possibly losing a match to an inferior player are simply unacceptable. That is certainly a valid viewpoint, and it's definitely predominant among the most serious videogame players.

A different perspective is that all competitive events have elements of chance, and the skill is in how you handle them. Some highly popular and competitive events (like poker tournaments) have chance and luck as central elements. That does not make them any less competitive, and less fair, or any less pure. As has been hashed over here time and time again, it takes skill to be able to compensate for bad luck, but it's definitely true that with chance elements in the equation, the best player won't win every single time.

This brings us to our tournaments. I designed this service not to be just for fun, nor as an ultimate measure of pure skill; my intent is somewhere in the middle, and thanks to all of your input, I think we've done a pretty good job with walking that line. I don't want our tournaments to be completely random, with no skill required, but I still want noobs and more casual players to have some hope of success. I think we can all agree (maybe) that hope is not a bad thing.

I do want these tournaments to be inclusive and welcoming. The library is for everybody, so our tournament events should be for everybody too. That means I want to have events that appeal to the highly serious players, but are also fun for beginners or rookies.

So, in the pursuit of offering something for everyone, the 4th championship season will still be Double Dash and Super Smash, with items, as we've discussed. It's quite clear that the presence of items in super smash does very little to keep the best players from rising to the top, and the chance elements are ultimately a benefit to everyone, except for the occasional superior player who loses a single match to a lucky noob. The regulation-style ruleset we used at the throwdown is not a dry-run for a Championship Season ruleset (other than testing the practicality and popularity of pool-style qualifiers), but, due to the success of the event, all our future smash throwdown (not part of the season) tournaments will continue to be regulation-style.

We will have another regulation smash tournament before the season starts, on Saturday, June 30, from Noon-5, just smash. With so much time, we should be able to have multiple pools, best of 5, all that crap. We'll also have another throwdown on a friday night somewhere during the fall. So, those of you who loved the regulation approach will find plenty to love. However, those of you who like the random elements and believe in hope will also find plenty of opportunity.

Mario Kart is an AWESOME tournament game. How can a game you can play on 8 tvs at once not be intended for tournaments? Monkey ball, Wario Ware, Pikmin... what makes a game great for a tournament at the library is not consistency of victory so much as it is a combination of fun accessibility for new players along with deep gameplay for veterans. Super Smash definitely offers that, but Mario Kart does too.

One final thought: all real-world competitions have elements of chance. That's where 'you win some, you lose some' comes from. Even relatively pure contests like the 100m dash are susceptible to random events, from the weather to loose shoelaces to a fart at just the wrong moment. Videogame tournaments offer a higher level of control over the parameters of the contest than could ever occur in the real world, so it makes sense to want to pursue an ideal format which could test for pure superiority.

At AADL-GT events, there's a place for that, but it's not for everyone. As thousands of other types of competitions show, the presence of chance elements does not invalidate the results of an event; and our line-up of different tournaments (and different tournament formats) for different audiences will continue to try to offer something for everyone, from the hopelessly hardcore to the hopeful noobs.

You may now resume your argument, already in progress.

Oh, and by the way, while I LOLed at the concept of 'AADL-GT: It Prints Money', it's not a good slogan for anything at the Library. We're a non-profit. We don't make money, we spend it. =)