First, Id like to thank all of the wizards who ran and officiated the event,
and Mr. Shinarae for creating the event. I have to say that the event was both
fun and heart-pounding. As one of the competitors I enjoyed it, even though I
was defeated by Searc. I congratulate the winners and have a few suggestions
for next year, if this event does become annual.

Just as Baseball has innings and boxing has rounds, I think this event could
benefit from similar concepts and have them as well. One of the biggest
"issues" with this event was that some of the participants took such a long
time to log on (including myself), thus leaving the crowd waiting long periods
of times between matches. One possible way to fill the gap on this, and make a
more interesting, and intense battle, is to extend the length of the match by
adding rounds. Simply, a system where one must fight someone more than once,
say 2 wins to determine the winner in any given 1 vs. 1, best 2 out of 3 (or
whatever) would determine the victor. Of course you could give people a 30-60
minute prep time between rounds and schedule it so the crowd has constant
entertainment. The benefit would be you would have a system where you have
only 4 people online, and you can make that into at least 4 (possibly 6)
battles and space them. For instance, if you have Shar v. Mithrand fight, and
Shar wins, then there is a 60 minute break, during this break the 2nd set of
contestants, Nazrix v. Searc, could fight, and Nazrix wins and then we get a
60 minute prep. During our prep, Shar and Mithrand would fight again, and so
on.

This would also allow people to adapt and use different tactics in each round
and use their toys conservatively and cautiously. This would give it an
appearance of a longer match. Since most of you noticed, a lot of matches only
lasted 1 or 2 minutes with a 1-2 hour wait between matches.

The only other suggestions might be a more active scheduling system. I.e. you
must sign up for a time period (say a 2 hour period) and if you do not show
up, you forfeit. This might also require Shinarae or others to request that
players schedule at least their first battles ahead of time, but that might
take away a bit of the randomness/surprise. Im sure some players knowingly
didnt log on to avoid fighting highbies off the bat.

Once again, a big thanks to the administration and wizards for thinking up
events for all of us to participate in and watch.


(*==-- /\/ --==*) BatMUD Council Representative (*==-- /\/ --==*)