Fwurg

[Mercury]

Time has arrived for the Grav-ball finals! The finals consist of a single elimination bracket, meaning there are three matches in total: two semi-finals and one final. There is no "loser final" for 3rd place. The four participating teams are the Cardinals, the Flaming Centipedes, the Dancing Trees and the Headhunters.

The semi finals will be between the Cardinals and the Headhunters in one match and the Flaming Centipedes and Dancing Trees in another, with the final being between the two winners.

The schedule for these games is as follows:

Turn 171: Semi-final Match 1 (Cardinals VS Headhunters)
Turn 172: Semi-final Match 2 (Flaming Centipedes VS Dancing Trees)
Turn 174: Finals (Winner semi-final match 1 VS Winner semi-final match 2)

Other important dates:
Turn 170: Deadline for match hosting bids

Team Associations

These four teams contain players from all over the Union, as listed in the table below, meaning that each world has players in two of those four teams. The overview below lists which world has players in which team:

Astai Republic

: Headhunters, Dancing Trees

Astrian Colonial Authority

: Headhunters, Flaming Centipedes

Hiocan Society

: Cardinals, Flaming Centipedes

Praetorian Empire

: Headhunters, Flaming Centipedes

Sundarian Federation

: Cardinals, Flaming Centipedes

Tepogrenaian Consensus

: Cardinals, Dancing Trees

Unified Republic of Darya

: Cardinals, Dancing Trees

Veolian Commonwealth

: Headhunters, Dancing Trees

If a team which includes players from your world wins the Grav-ball Finals, this benefits your world as people celebrate and purchase more. It also gains you political influence as you can now use "meetings with the pro-players" as political collateral to curry favour. In game terms, this means if one of the two teams affiliated with your world wins, you get an instant +10 and prize money of 200 / for a period of 5 .

How matches are played

OOCly, the a match is determined by rolling a 10 sided dice for each team, the winner being the one with the highest result. In case of a tie, a reroll is made. Naturally there are ways to influence these odds!

Booster Packages!

You can spend to improve the odds of a team by providing them with certain advantages, specifically adding a +1 bonus to the roll of that team in every match they play. The table below shows which packages are available. Note that each package can be purchased only once for each team.

• Advanced Training (+1 on roll, costs 250 )
  Advanced training provides a team with expert support to make the team even better than they already are.
• PR Package (+1 on roll and +50 / prize money, costs 350 )
  By spending on public relations, your team gets some amazing press, increasing enthausiasm for the game and generally providing much more active supporters. This also increases the prize money if the team wins to +50 / .
• Reward Package (+1 on roll, costs 500 , but you only pay if the team wins)
  By providing "special incentives" the team will be much more motivated to win, hopefully producing better results. You only have to pay if the team wins.

Which booster packages are bought for which teams if public knowledge. To buy a booster package, put it in your turn report (even if you don't have to pay yet, as with the Reward Package), it will give the bonus after the turn report has been approved.

Hosting a match!

There is one more way in which you can participate in this event, and that is by hosting either a semi final or a full final. These matches are sold by closed bid auction - you send a bid to Mercury via PM and the highest bid wins. The deadline for sending in bids is the end of 170.

The benefit if hosting a match is simple:

• If you host a semi-final, you get +2 . Additionally, if one of your teams wins, your prize money is doubled.
• If you host a final you get +5 . Additionally, if one of your teams wins, your prize money is tripled.

There is no added bonus for hosting more than one match; you only get the highest reward.

Notes

If this event is successful, it may be repeated ^_^

Final note: The amounts used are to keep matters interesting. Of course they are somewhat out of scale with the actual costs of tournaments like these, so try to imagine they are instead associated with building new stadiums, giving people on the entire world the day off, etc.

[Brend]

Wooooooo! Whooohoooooo! Sports!

Well, more acurately, sports betting! Woot.

Also, I have added wiki pages and stuff: Union Gravball Association.

[Chriz]

Question:

"This also increases the prize money if the team wins to +50 / . "

Does this mean that every faction that "owns the team" get +50 ? Or is it just the player that uses the PR package.

[Brend]

First off, there is no "owns the team". There are players from your world in the team, this does not give you any amount of ownership over them.

Everyone that gets prize money will get the increased amount of prize money; so instead of the the normal 200 / , the prize money is increased to 250 / .

[Chriz]

Fedor, Elmer and I were wondering whether a package can be bought multiple times for a team by different factions.

We currently read it as each individual package can only be bought once for each team resulting in a maximum bonus of +3. However in the other explanation each faction could buy each package for a maximum bonus of +12. To be honest we are hoping it is the latter since that would be real crazy betting :P

Furthermore it would give options to cooperate instead of 4 factions simply buying the 3 available packages together since the costs are not that high if you share them...

[Brend]

Note that each package can be purchased only once for each team.

The intention is literally as it is written: a package can only be bought once for each team.

So if the Praetorians buy the PR package for the Flaming Centipedes, the Flaming Centipedes have the PR package. If the Hiocans want to boost the Flaming Centipedes as well, they can not buy the PR package anymore.

Buying packages together is already cooperating... Just stacking up bonuses is not cooperating, that's just stacking :P

Note that this isn't intended as an intergalactic-scale 'whole worlds bet all they have' event. We already inflated the prices of packages to have them in a scope where worlds could actually do something with it. (1 is already a big honking load of credits)

[Brend]

For those not in the habitat of getting inspiration from Wookiepedia, their Grav-ball article is actually quite nice. Small but informative.

[Mercury]

There is a bit of a complication with the grav ball finals, in that Turn 170 is the deadline for the match host bids, but turn 171 (when that deadline passed and I can process it) also already hosts the first semi finals match. For this reason, I am moving the actual match outcomes to the Monday following those turns (so the Semi final Match 1 between the Cardinals and the Headhunters will be published next Monday after Turn 171 is approved), as if both teams had to submit their results as a turn report.

Keep in mind that you can still buy team buffs, but if you want them to be effective for the upcoming match, those buffs need to be in by this turn report!

If you paid for a buff, be sure to let me know via a PM so I don't lose track!

Regarding the bids, the Praetorian Empire outbid everyone in all bids for all three matches- I could be an ass-hole and make them win all the bids, which would not be useful to them since they only get the benefits once and not to the others who don't get any matches, so instead, I had them win their first choice (the actual final) and removed them from the bidding for the semi-finals, then following through with the other nations who bid.

This seems fair to me and is ultimately beneficial to everyone, since the Praetorians now don't pay for features that don't add anything and the other bidders get their bids validated.

[Brend]

So everyone can keep track of ti:

Subject: Turn 170 (01/09/2014 - 07/09/2014):

Grav-ball finals

Advanced Training for the Dancing Trees: +250 -> COMPLETE ( 250 / 250 )
Advanced Training for the Headhunters: +250 -> COMPLETE ( 250 / 250 )

[Chriz]

Okey no problem, but buying influence points xd

[Chriz]

Subject: Turn 171 (08/09/2014 - 14/09/2014):

Grav-ball finals

PR Package for the Headhunters +88 -- together with the Veolian Commonwealth, Astai Republic and Astrian Colonial Authority
Reward Package for the Headhunters -- together with the Veolian Commonwealth, Astai Republic and Astrian Colonial Authority
Reward Package for the Flaming Centipedes

[Fedor]

Subject: Turn 171 (08/09/2014 - 14/09/2014)

PR Package for the Headhunters +88 -- together with the Veolian Commonwealth, Astai Republic and Astrian Colonial Authority
Reward Package for the Headhunters -- together with the Veolian Commonwealth, Astai Republic and Astrian Colonial Authority
Reward Package for the Dancing Trees

[Brend]

Everyone posting these messages is not very helpful, I realized. Neither for the players, as they have to mentally tally the bonusses, nor for the STs as they have to do the same thing. So, I created the overview page Gravball Finals 2014 in the playground.

This does NOT mean that you do not have to PM Mercury with your packages! You still need to do that since he asked for it for his own sanity.

Once more, for easier browsing:

Helpful link: Gravball Finals 2014

[Brend]

Notice for people that bought booster packages: If you have not yet PMed Mercury with the boosters you bought, do not forget to do this!

[Chriz]

I believe the Astai Republic has not payed for the match that they hosted yet, this is a bit iffy.

I have no problem with them paying it next turn since it is not a very impressive amount but I don't know what others think. I am guessing it is about 100 at most, however the amounts were never published which also makes it kind of weird for me as turn auditor.

I propose for the storyteller to post the amounts that the winners have to pay to make this more transparent in future tournaments.

[Brend]

Personally, I would say that not paying means the match had to be held somewhere else; which means they don't have to pay anymore, but don't get the benefits either.

However, I understand that people make mistakes OOCly -- so I'm fine with them paying the amount next turn. It wouldn't generate any appreciable roleplay anyway, since there is no PC party not getting paid.

[Fedor]

I would obviously like to just pay the 100 this turn (the bid was 100 ). We don't really have set rules for these cases.

I will follow Brends proposal of just paying the amount unless someone objects, but I agree that no appreciable roleplay is generated by the mistake, perhaps there is a guideline for these cases in that?

[Brend]

...We don't really have set rules for these cases...

Do we need rules for "I promise to pay X amount before turn Y."?

[Fedor]

Indeed not a rule for this, but a policy for a punishment when X does not pay before Y. Such as the decision in this case whether there should be some form of punishment or just payment. Though this could be handled on a case by case basis.

[Brend]

Indeed not a rule for this, but a policy for a punishment when X does not pay before Y. Such as the decision in this case whether there should be some form of punishment or just payment. Though this could be handled on a case by case basis.

I'd rather keep the OOC errors on a case-by-case basis.

[Elmer]

Me too, mostly because a lot of these cases can be solved IC. I think it wont be fun when most 'I forgot to pay' cases are solved with some OOC ruling, if we can use IC laws and roleplay to solve the issue.

For this special case, I think it is fine if the payment is done coming turn, since nobody is actually disadvantaged by this mistake.

[Brend]

I promised Mercury to post the calculated winnings for the Gravball finals after he posted the results because he did not have the time to do the calculations and checking.

I have calculated the following, based on bought upgrade packages and locations of semi-finals and finals, and the player introduction in the [ Holonet ] Grav-ball Team Members Introduction:

• Astai Republic (semi final, player introduction): +13 , 500 per for 5
• Astrian Colonial Authority (player introduction): +11 , 250 per for 5
• Veolian Commonwealth (semi final, player introduction): +13 , 500 per for 5
• Praetorian Empire (final): +15 , 750 per for 5
• Teprogrenaian Consensus (player introduction): +1

The will be handed out once the story page is in order. The winnings will run from 176 - 180 (it would be best if the story page was done before then!)

Next to this, the Reward package for the Headhunters must be paid this turn ( 175).

I have made a skeleton story page: Gravball Finals 2014

Note that the story page should also include at least a note on the [ Holonet ] Grav-ball Team Members Introduction!

[Brend]

Notice to players with winnings: Since I have to do the bookkeeping for myself anyway, I have added a winnings trade for everyone on the playground:gravball-finals-2014 page.

I will remove them when the winnings income is done, saving everyone a little time ^_^

[Brend]

Right... It seems that if I do not do the writing of this story page, no one does. I have finished the story page, and handed out the .