It seems I'm going to have rather a large amount of time on my hands between now and at least the end of the year. It's apparent that a large number of Skjaldborg members enjoy a good game of Megamek from time to time. I'd actually quite enjoy playing a bit more MegaMek myself. There's already an awesome campaign drawing to a close and another just about ready to get started, of course. But I'm curious whether there's any interest in an actual MegaMek tournament. We could either go mech vs mech or lance vs lance. One-off tournament or a persistent series of events. Depends on how much interest there is, if any, and what people feel like.
I know that one person has tried this before and I know that Skwis and I tried to put something together that ultimately failed as well due to scheduling and getting people online at the same time to play. If this is something you are interested in doing, good luck and know that the logistics of it is a real pain in the ass.
That would have been me. The issue was having people in from around the world. What we should have done was have divisions, one NA, one Euro, and the winner of each meet at the end. Having everything mixed up made it so that matches never took place in a reasonable amount of time.
Even then NA scheduling is a pain. Having to try and coordinate EC and WC people and then the two in the middle....logistical nightmare.
Well, I'm willing to give it a shot. If scheduling games is a problem, we can keep things moving nice and slow. One game every week or two depending on what people can do. If you'd be interested in participating, please post here with the division you want to be placed in when the rules get hammered out. I'll set up a poll to see what people would prefer for rules. A lance of mechs would be the standard choice, but we could always play with a single mech from a selected weight class and rotate through the classes.
Might have a bit much on our plates to go for this. Holidays coming around, MWO new content ramping up, the Star Citizen circle jerking.. I unno.
If I may offer my experience on this topic: How about a third option of "Other"? Not saying one is better than another but there is a huge difference in tactics between single combat and lance combat. Single combat is far easier to manage, but ultimately it will lead to no small amount of frustration for some people. The problem stems from the randomness of the dice roll. Assuming two combatants are relatively evenly matched, you would think it would be a fair fight. However, you could play a "smart game" and still lose just because your opponent got really lucky. It is one thing to lose fairly, but there is no fun to be had from losing because the dice gods commanded it. The advantage of 4 vs 4 is that while victory still relies a bit on luck, it takes A LOT more coordination and skill to pull out a win... TACTICS plays a much larger role. And battletech is ultimately a game about TACTICS. For this reason, I suggest as an alternative we schedule a series of exhibitions. Tournament games if you will. Something more than just "two men enter, one man leaves", but something less than planned matchmaking and team ranking (which is too much work). I speak of course... of The Gauntlet. /evil grin Think of a combination of Battle Royale mixed with an obstacle course. Or if you are familiar with the Xmen, the Danger Room. The benefit of this setup is that you get both your Team Play and Single Combat at once and there is no worries of conflicting schedules because people can drop in and out as they please. Keep in mind that the holidays, family, school/work and then the Reunification War will be taking priorities as far as Megamek activities are concerned... so whatever we do beyond that (if anything) needs to be as simple and flexible according people's schedules as possible.
