EDIT: Also, I would like to add, I don't like the idea of 11 PM machine selection (If I'm in top 12). MY expeirence in KO1 and KO2 is I like to get a relaxing night in before the main start on Saturday. That was a problem at KO1. So, I think getting the selection of the machine in at 5 PM for the top 12 is still best.
It's good to see your thoughts on this Dave, and I also remember what happened with the late meeting on the Friday before the KO1.
I don't mean to further derail this topic, but I just feel that this issue (the machine selection) is going to turn out to be very important and I think it deserves some more thought before things are set into any harder stone than they already are.
Just think for a moment about what is likely going to happen if the schedule remains how it's currently written and machine selection happens at 5:00. The schedule would have us believe that there will be 12 hours of play time for Friday players. Nothing could be further from the truth. First, based upon the track record from previous events, 11:00AM will not be the true start time since everything always begins late. So, first quarter might happen somewhere in the range of 11:30 - 12:00. Now, to really have machine selection at 5:00, the entire hoard of Friday players would have to agree to stop play by about 2:00 -- or even 2:30 since most players are unlikely going to be trying for a 3 hour WR game (although that option SHOULD technically remain open to Wildcard players at all times!). Now, suppose someone like Mitch or Ross is playing on Friday and a machine opens for them at 2:50. Will they take their turn now and risk having the cord pulled on their game on Level 19? But, if they pass, a bunch of other players behind them will say -- "well, I'm just running boards! Two hours is more than enough for me!" and now you have your first issue.
Next, no one is going to want to be the one who waited through the whole queue and then stop the action. So, we could have a handful of casual players just jumping on at 3:30, 4:00, 4:30 . . . and now the whole system of the queue is breaking down, AND there WILL be good games going at 5:00 that will have to be aborted -- I can't stress enough how BAD that would be for the tournament if that happened to even a single player.
So, how could we avoid that? Require a mandatory last quarter drop at 2:30. So, now you have play happening potentially from 11:45 to 2:30, with a potentially large queue. How sick would it be if SOMEONE DIDN'T EVEN GET TO PLAY YET?
Now you have machine selection beginning at 5:00. Top 12 players will now be checking out about 25 machines according to some system that has not been specified (should it go in some sort of order? Maybe go down the arcade high score list and choose machines in order?) I believe that the chaos of the situation will cause machine selection to take longer. Players will have concerns. Machines will be labeled and rearranged. Problems with some machines will be found and they will be worked on. Now, we have to try to get ALL of those Friday players back into the room and reorganized -- the queue will need to be recreated, players will have to be reassigned to the 10 machines. All sorts of additional chaos will ensue. 6:00 will turn into 6:30, 7:00, or later. Let's say that play starts up again at 7:15. The schedule says that play continues until midnight. But when is last quarter drop (STILL NOT SPECIFIED!). I assume that last quarter in that situation should be 9:30, but let's call it 10:00.
Under this scenario I anticipate 2.75 hours of play in the first session and 2.75 hours of play in the second session, for a total of about 5 1/2 hours of disjointed, confused play for the Friday Wildcard players who will consider themselves lucky if they got 2 turns at the machine.
My solution is to bump the schedule forward slightly for the Friday tournament and have machine selection occur at the end of the day. Have first quarter drop happen at 10:00AM and go unbroken until last quarter drop, which could be scheduled for 8:00PM. This guarantees 10 full hours of smooth, highly organized play for the Wildcard Tournament players where the average player will have about 7 turns on the machine (assume 30 Friday players, 10 machines, "next available", "no restarts", avg game time of 30 minutes). Meanwhile, Top 12 players can informally begin the machine selection process throughout the day by playing on the 12 machines that were set aside for us on Friday. Beginning at around 7:00 we can get more serious about whether or not we like one of these machines, etc. Just after 8:00, people will begin bombing out of the Friday tournament and machines will begin opening up for us to jump on for a few minutes to test out. MOST machines will be open by 9:00 -- and do we really need to be able to check out those last few machines where people have good games going? Remember, this year the 12 players will be choosing from among about 25 machines! There is no such thing this year as the late arrival getting "stuck with the last machine that has some problems". The last player to choose will still get to choose from among 14 machines -- so if 2 or 3 games are still going in the Wildcard Tournament, who cares? I think machines will actually be chosen significantly faster doing it this way and we'd be completely done by 10:00. From about 8:30 - 10:00 I could see most players practicing on their chosen machine, making sure there's no problems, asking for adjustments, etc and we'd be out of there at a reasonable time.
I do understand that it's potentially not quite as good for Top 12 players as having the process done earlier, but I think the whole tournament will suffer pretty severely if it stays as is.
Ok, this post was WAY longer than intended! lol That is all. :-)
