The tie-breaker songs

OK, a non-tournament issue this time that's been buggin' me for a while...tie-breaker songs in (Pro) Face-Off battles. I play Pro Face-Off matches a few times a week and I've found there are two types of players: 1) worthy competitors that challenge you, or 2) people that quit early.

While the latter of the two are annoying and need to realize at what level they can compete, its the worthy competitors I currently have a beef with. I've had many matches where we are both close in each of the four songs we play. I win one, they win one...and only by a few thousand points. These match-ups are great and exciting because they push me (and I assume I push them) to the point where missing only a few notes or a star power make the difference. Often the regulation songs end up in a tie, and then it seems I rarely get to pick the tie-breaker song, but I can live with that.

At least I can live with that as long as the tie-breaker is NOT Through Fire and Flames. I so don't understand why people always pick that song as the tie-breaker. Very, very, very few people can play that song well at Expert level. I'm not one of those people and I doubt you are. Sure, it's a fun song to hear but not a fun song to play, and because of this a tie-breaker with TFFAF ends up not fairly exploiting our playing skills.

The regulation matches prove that we're both of equal skill and the tie-breaker should be a song that we can both be good at, almost down to the 100% level. These songs push each of us to be the best we can be and comes down to literally one or two notes making the difference.

The few times I've gotten to choose the tie-breaker song I almost always pick Reptilia, Jonas, Black Magic, or Miss Murder. Why? Because the a) fun and b) are just easy enough. They're easy enough that we should both know them (almost) by heart so that a missed SP or note will be the difference maker.

If that player meter isn't flipping between yellow and purple constantly then it's just not as fun as it could be.

I know we all play at different levels. I've been whooped on Expert and I've done some whooping on Expert. The door swings both ways, but I'm sure I'm not alone when I say it's not very fun to get stomped or do the stomping. Face-offs are at their best when the points are close. Nobody wants a blow-out.

I guess this bitching really isn't fair because if GH would have had some sort of ranking system to match-up players we wouldn't have these type problems. And I know me even writing this puts a target on me should anyone face-off against me, but please, can we quit with the TFFAF tie-breakers. It's just not fun. If you want to hear the song, just add it to your FineTune playlist and listen to it. Don't make us suffer through trying to play that song.

READ: Tournament entry changes that effect everyone

The changes keep on coming...the next effected part of the tournaments is now sign-up and entry. Since GH.com shut down their XML service (for now) I had to totally rearrange how people sign-up and enter tournaments. Prior the XML service was used to check names, skill levels, etc...but now it can't do any of that.

So the result is that first-time players must provide their player name along with their e-mail address and GH ID number. If you are a returning player, your player name is already in the system and you don't need to fill it out (you can, but it won't make a difference).

The system still checks to make sure the submitted GHID matches the e-mail address, so people can't sign-up using your ID. And the same system of confirmations by e-mail is still in place too.

Unfortunately, these changes also killed the ability to auto-check skill levels. Because your career percentage was included in your XML, I was able to enforce the 80% cut-off for tournaments. I can no longer do this. So that meansI can't stop Experts from playing in Hard (or lesser) tournaments. More All-In tournaments will eventually make this a non-issue.

And as before, all this is sudden changes, and I've done by best to test before putting it on the site, but I'm sure I've missed some things. So if you find any problems or see any weird errors or pages, please send mail. Thanks.

UPDATE: Tournaments now open, need your help testing

OK, so I overestimated the impact the GH.com changes had...hopefully. I think I managed to update the Edison system to account for the new GH profile pages, but I need everyone's help in making sure.

I scheduled tournaments for tonight, Monday, and Tuesday...please, please, please, please enter in as many as you can and play so I can be sure the system was updated properly. Assuming all goes well for these few test tourneys, prize tournaments for the 4th weekend will be back on.

My apologies for the cancellation of tonight's PPTs and prize tourneys. I wouldn't have felt comfortable having either PPT or prizes on the table when I wasn't entirely sure about accuracy of the system.

So please go sign-up now for as many of the GH3 tourneys as you can.

Thank you!!!

Achievements and leaderboards, do we need them?

When tournaments first started there was a standard leaderboard that ranked players based on the number of wins. After a while I decided to create Achievements instead of rankings because with many tournaments resulting in just one player showing up, it wasn't really fair to count wins for rankings because they won by default.

I'm not exactly happy with the Achievements as they are now, but I think it's a more fair way to represent player accomplishments. It's better, but somehow I'm sure there's a better way to show off star players....I'm just not sure what it is. So I ask everyone...

What type of player ranking system do you like? Outside of just having fun and prizes, what type of ranking/scoring would motivate you to play?

And that's assuming we need one at all. Maybe it doesn't matter and we can eliminate the leaderboards and achievements all together.

I just feel it's the one piece of the puzzle missing from the site. I want to showcase individuals more but aren't sure how to do it. Just comment here or post in the forum with your thoughts.

Of course, there limits to how complex we can get with rankings, but I'm open to all ideas

Create-A-Bracket is now Suggest-A-Set

Before there were PPTs the Create-A-Bracket feature was how you could "create" your own tournament. But that name was sort of a misnomer because it didn't really create a bracket, it just made a suggestion for a bracket that I would then consider - and often use - when scheduling tournaments.

Now that PPTs are here and they actually do create brackets, I've slimmed down the Create-A-Bracket and renamed it Suggest-A-Set. It pretty much does the same thing as C-a-B but just asks you for your songs. I do the rest on my end. I also made some changes to my admin tools that let me play around more with the submitted sets so I can create more tourneys.

If your set gets picked your name will be part of the "Player's Picks" tournament name, something like "Player's Picks by Bob"

Nothing too major, just a change in name. So please continue to submit your song lists!

(Oh, and now that All-In tourneys are available, TFAF has been added back to the S-a-S options)

Win a Skin weekend and All-in comes to PPTs

Enter Saturday's "Win a Skin" tournament for your chance to win a kick ass Angry Edison faceplate sticker. It's a custom design that will fit any Les Paul model (Wii/XBox/PS3). This week's skin is black only, but a white version should be on the way for all you black faceplate folks.

Also just added to Private tourney options is All-In style. So now you can schedule your PPTs to allow any difficulty level.

Sorry for the light weekend schedule this time around, things have been busy. Look for some beefier tourneys next week for the holiday.

Angry Edison custom skins are here, up for grabs soon

It is with much excitement and thanks that I give the first glimpse of some custom Angry Edison skins that will be up for grabs soon.

I can't thank Ernie at TooManyMorons.com enough for his time, effort, and contribution of these skins to our cause. The skins are top quality vinyl and can be applied directly to your faceplate with little hassle. Look for this design, called "B-Side," and others in prize tourneys real soon.



And I'll also take this time to pimp the Guitar Hero Designs group we have on Flickr. Many of you have already sent in your guitar designs, stickers, and skins but we know more of you have customized your controllers --- so send in your photos! If you're on Flickr just send your photos to the group, or if you're not, e-mail photos to photos@angryedison.com

Were the All-In tournaments successful?

This week we tested a new All-In style of tournaments where you could play bracket songs at any difficulty and still end up with a competing score. From my end, everything looked like it worked. Scores were being adjusted with the proper formula (per song, per difficulty) and the resulting brackets reflected the All-In scores. I had my wife play in a few brackets and from observing playing and converting in real-time, I can say it looked like everything went fine there too.

But how did you see the All-In tournaments? If you played in a tournament this week, please comment here or let us know somehow.

• Do you feel the adjusted scores were accurate?
• Did you trust them?
• Did you try playing in a different difficulty than you're used to playing?
• Did the match-ups seem fair?
• If you played Easy/Med/Hard, did you feel like you had a chance against Expert scores?
  

Looking back at some of the tournaments, I didn't see any scores that looked way off. In fact, most of the scores were pretty close, which made for some really nice match-ups.

Mike S. finished off helping me with getting the proper multipliers for all the stock songs, so future All-In tournaments can feature the bonus songs including TTFAF.

So unless anyone has some major issues with how the week of All-In brackets went, I'll be regularly scheduling the All-In tourneys along with the leveled tourneys. Also, the PPT form will be updated to allow for All-In too, so you can schedule friend tourneys without having to worry about levels.

Please comment or post in the forum or even send mail. Any feedback is appreciated, positive or negative. Hearing from players makes a huge difference.

Time to test All-In tournaments

It has finally been added, All-In style tournaments that let you play songs at any difficulty level within a single tournament. This means you can compete against everyone fairly regardless of skill level. Medium players can take on Experts, and Easys can take on Hards.

With mucho help from Michael S. and Pete M., I was able to update the bracket system to allow All-In tournaments and we're going to be testing them all week long. So please pick any tournament you can make and play along. Your playing will help test the All-In tourneys and help fix any problems.

All-In tournaments work by adjusting scores up to match Expert levels. So if you are a Medium player and get 100,000 on a song, through some mathmagic that score is adjusted to what it would be if you played on Expert, maybe 200,000. How your score is adjusted depends on what song you play and what difficulty you play it on.

To fairly adjust scores, we've taken the top 5 high scores for each song per difficulty and averaged them together. By then dividing Easy/Med/Hard scores by the Expert score we are able to get a multiplier value (a decimal). When your score is recorded, the system looks at what level you played at and finds the corresponding multiplier to up your score.

Our tests have shown the concept to be pretty fair and stable, but please keep in mind this is the first real-world test of All-In rules...so there will be changes and there will probably be problems, just don't get worked up about it. If this beta goes well the All-In tournaments will find a home here with the leveled tournaments. All-In will not be replacing the leveled tournaments.

Hopefully the All-In style will let more people join in a single tournament and give everyone a fair chance to win and thus hopefully see some new champions get rewarded for their skill. It will also allow us to schedule the harder songs like "One" and TTFAF since you can play it at any level and have a better chance of actually finishing the song.

Please check out this week's tournaments and enter one that fits your schedule.

Claiming your tournament prizes

I've done my best to notify tournaments winners about claiming their prize, but as more tournaments get scheduled, it's been harder to keep up. So, this is just a friendly reminder that if you win a tournament to send in an e-mail telling me you won. You have up to five days after the tournament to ask to claim your prize. I'll then confirm your win and your claim eligibility.

When you do send in your e-mail, please try to include the name or date of the tournament you won, your player name, and your e-mail address. Assuming you haven't claimed a prize within the last 30-days I'll reply back with the claim form so I can have your prize delivered.

And try not to wait too long after winning to let us know you've won. If you contact us two weeks after the tournament saying, "I won and I want my prize now," you won't get your prize. If you ask on the sixth day you'll be out of luck. Not to be a jerk, but rules are rules.

I'll still try to contact winners but don't wait if you really want your prize. Better to be safe than sorry.

Are we ready for Pay-to-Play tournaments?

The idea of pay-to-play (PTP) tournaments has come up in the past but at that time I wasn't ready to manage that type of tournament. Plus I wasn't sure if the site could support it. But now the system is at a place where I feel comfortable toying with the idea of real money tournaments.

Should we start them, PTP tourneys would be private tournaments. There would be an open call for entries and people would submit an entry form that would claim their spot as first come, first served. Once the tourney was full (or within a few days of starting), I would ask the players to submit their entry fee via PayPal only. Once payment was received I'd send them the PPT link and they could sign-up. The tourney would run like normal and a winner determined. The winner would then get the pot delivered to them via Paypal only. It's not very automatic but I think this is how we have to start.

I'm a firm believer in micro-payments, so the entry fee per tournament would be something small like $1 or $2. Small entry fees should help people who want to try it without a lot of risk - kinda like quarter slots. The pay out for winning would not be very big, but there would be no limit to how many tourneys you could enter or win (no 30-day rule). And since we schedule tournaments quite frequently, a player could enter multiple tournaments within a few week period and run a pretty nice tally if they keep up their winning.

I know it's not a $500 top prize or anything huge, but I don't believe we need crazy amounts for people to have fun and get a little something for their gaming skill. If you ask me, getting $15 cash for playing three songs on a Thursday night isn't bad at all. And if there were three PTP tourneys a week, you could be making almost $50 a week just for playing GH. That's beer money at least!

But I'm looking for everyone's thoughts on this. This goes way beyond playing for gift cards and key chains. I think I'm at point where I could manage payments and payouts, but I'd want to know that people would give it a try. Please comment with your thoughts or post in the forum.

Local Guitar Hero contest for dads in Columbus

As we like to support local Guitar Hero happenings, local Columbus station 105.7 The Brew is having a Guitar Hero contest just for dads. No real details as of yet. Just register by e-mail and you're in. And if you're not a dad, grab the nearest child and go for it!

Prize change for weekend tournaments

As is turns out the supply of GH key chains has run out. Bad thing is I had already scheduled some key chain prize tournaments for the weekend. So to make up for the error, the Friday expert and Saturday easy tournament prizes have been changed to a $5.00 Amazon.com gift card.

As the Community Chest put it, "Bank error in your favor."

Your call: No restrictions in private tourneys?

A post in the forum highlighted a problem I really didn't think about when it came to private tournaments: skill restrictions. Right now public tourneys have difficulty restrictions at 80% based on your career. In this case, the organizer was creating a tourney for his friends, but not all of them are Expert players like he is. So he made a Hard tourney but then he can't enter his own tournament.

The "All-In" tournament style that has been talked about before is obviously a solution to this type of problem, but it got me thinking about if the restrictions are needed for private tourneys at all? Since players are personally invited and thus have a closer relationship to the organizer it seems the honor system would work better in private than public. Each tourney would be given a difficulty level, but the 80% cap would not be enforced.

But I need second opinions...should PPTs forgo the career restrictions?

Weekly Rogaine Rock new to Thursdays

Here in Columbus there's a local classic rock radio station - QFM96 - that airs a weekly program called Rogaine Rock. It airs on Thursday nights at 9PM and they play some of the best 80s hair metal every recorded. And it's not always the super singles you hear everywhere, they do their best to toss in the ones that kick ass but don't get much play otherwise. It's a good show and if you're on-line at 9PM on Thursdays, tune in on-line.

But that promo aside, Rogaine Rock is just a cool name that fits so well with what we do and I wanted to use it - so I am*. Starting this week, I'll be scheduling a weekly Rogaine Rock prize tournament. While the stock set list doesn't have enough classic metal to keep things fresh week in and week out, it's safe to say the tournament will feature at least one classic metal tune.

Each week will be scheduled for a different skill level and each week's prize will be different. So if you're not able to rock out on the weekends with the rest of us, you can still get in on the winnings. Just sign-up for Rogaine Rock every Thursday night.

*Just want disclaim that QMF96 is not an Angry Edison sponsor. I just like the station and love the show so I thought I'd share it with everyone else.

Search&Destory suspended

The Search&Destroy tournament collection game has been suspended until further notice. Other things have come up and the beta tests for S&D was not going as well as I had hoped. Nothing ventured, nothing gained...thanks for those that helped test. Hopefully S&D will come back in the future.