EVE Alliance Tournament Discussion

A tournament where you can win real money!

Offering RL money as a front to cash in on plexes and then make out like your doing us a favor, How about you focus on the game development and not lining your wallets with alternative 'thrown in tournament' schemes.

This is a lame attempt at making side cash, and takes away from the spirit of the actual alliance tournaments, where people competed for the love and glory of the game.

If this isnt about money spinning you could of just put the financial prize on to the existing tournament next time around.

With that said, let the flaming of forum whores commence.

Xenoxe.

For some reason, my feelings about the alliance tournament, where (for me) it's about fighting to prove your alliance is best, and this cash-grab tournament are very different. I'm having trouble justifying spending even 20 PLEX on this, whereas I spent 40 on the AT entry. I think many others share this sentiment, and I think the signups are going to be underwhelming.

I recommend the CCP tournament team read "Predictably Irrational" by Dan Ariely, specifically chapter 4, The Cost of Social Norms, Why We Are Happy to Do Things, but Not When We Are Paid to Do Them. As it stands now, the tournament is out of the "social norms world" due to the cash payout, but the payout is not nearly good enough to make it worthwhile in the "market norms world" (especially considering the entry fee).

CCP could've made this an invitational tournament to ensure no "trash" teams enter (or at least invite some known players to enter a team for free) and/or offer better prizes.

There are certainly less than 32 very strong alliances. There are maybe 8-10 strong ones, and 3-5 very strong ones. Furthermore, the gap between strong and weak teams is huge, as can be seen by the ease with which strong teams defeat weaker ones, even when setups are similar or the weaker team is fielding a counter. You could've easily invited 10 strong team leaders and held an auction for 22 more spots. Yes, someone would have been upset they didn't make the cut, but then someone is always upset.

As to your last, most important, point - even if you were going to make money on this event, anyone would be silly to think a few tens of thousands of dollars are anything but a blip on CCP's income sheet. The most value CCP stands to gain from this is in the form of publicity, and that is precisely where you could've gained much more than I believe you will, by making this a worthwhile event for the likes of me.

The danger is that if this doesn't take off on the first attempt, you may not be given an opportunity to try again.

AT X had so many "unknown" and "underdog" teams that provided great fun, it wasn't just all ~elite tournament teams~ dominating. I think with double elimination, pick banning, and best of 3/5 semi/finals you will see a lot more parity.

to Faffywaffy

I think that you are being overly pessimistic about the entire event.

CCP is trying to test some mechanics/formats that would work for EvE online in eSports. I don't think that it would ever be as big as Dota, LoL or Starcraft, but i can see the potential. In the end, small steps and gradual but steady improvement is sort of a trade mark for CCP, and so far it worked well with EvE Online. I would personally also prefer to have a huge, fancy tournament with £100.000 prize pool, but then, if you throw out big tournament and fail utterly in executing it, it will cost you much more prestige (and also some extra money) than starting with something small to test it, and then throw in a big one.
To assume that if this 'little' tournament - unworthy of your attention - would fail, then CCP won't be given an opportunity to try again is just wrong. Doesn't work that way. Quite opposite, once refined and tested, they will get much better opportunity.

We will for sure go and try it, if nothing else, its an opportunity for 'redemption' in our case.

In my opinion, the most important change is the format of the tournament, which seems to be much better suited for smaller teams/alliances, as you don't need that many pilots to test setups thoroughly as in full 12v12.

Yes, you r certainly right here and i agree.

One thing we can do, is to participate and try to make it better. In the end, its in our own interest (i mean those, who enjoy tournament - like events). CCP management can decide against even if its a successful tournament, but we can't change that.

Completely agree with this.

As to your point Seldarine about me wanting to be apart of such a thing, I dont want to do Tournaments as a matter of choice. I did enjoy watching the last Alliance Tournament and watched majority of the games that were played. I think that for those people out there who like that opportunity to represent their alliance and put themselves out there for honour and glory its great.

What i dont think is good is this direction of real ££ tournaments, thrown in for the sake of making cash - and if you think that it isnt making them money then you are so mistaken. People should want to do tournaments for the game not the money, but to entice many people to spend ££ on plex to bid they have thrown this in. They opened it up to everyone not out of a sense of fairness and inability to decide who to and not invite but purely based on more and more teams being able to enter, and more and more Plex being involved.

If you think ccp do anything to lose money, you are seriously mistaken. Not that im saying they should try and lose money - christ what kind of business plan would that be, But dont wrap up this shambles of a tournament in a good for the gamers type way.
I mean whats next, buying officer mods off the market with your credit card?

Ok, let the flaming continue

Xenoxe

Wonder if the teams of new Eden have enough time to prepare the resources you're asking them to deliver - i'm sure you know the amount of prep and planning required by an alliance tourney team?

(not just material but human, ) certainly there are well versed teams in eve, they have preferred sets of tactics and strategies
but they'll need easily half a dozen strategies load outs fit and ready to go to account for the ban lists, devising these and more importantly using them effectively is no small investment of time and effort on the part of the pilots.

(though as an afterthought i suspect most will deny logi and/or t3 ;) )

isk cost not-withstanding, the logistics and HR will be what denies most i think

I seem amazed by people who think making money is wrong (CCP said they won't be making money of it), but even if they are so what. As long as they are adding value to the game and players, they should be making money off it somehow. Almost any tournament is made with the idea of making money (whether directly or indirectly).

The question you have to ask, is this torunament going to bring value to the game as a whole?

We will have to wait and see I guess (I think it will), but please stop with the arguement that CCP shouldn't be making money, it is a corporation not a charity.

I wholeheartedly agree with this, serious teams have no real way to prepare for tournaments. Hopefully you can get enough people on the test server, and find enough items fit the ships. Then when all is said and done you have to protect yourself from other teams spying on you. My team has spent several practice sessions setting up everything in a wormhole just to prevent this type of thing and even then it could all be for nothing, it might just come down to what looks good on paper when the match starts.