Jump to content
Due to a large amount of spamers, accounts will now have to be approved by the Admins so please be patient. ×
IGNORED

Battle of the Arcades OZ & NZ 2019


Recommended Posts

  • Replies 69
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

Absolutely amazing weekend, and the tension at 6pm was unbelievable at Pincadia, and I'd say similar at Netherworld.

 

Thanks to @Jimmy Nails who has pretty much put this event together since last year and co-ordinated it again this year, but massive thanks to all the arcade owners who went above and beyond to support the event. I'd nearly go as far as saying the Aust/NZ guys have supported this event this year better than what the USA arcades have done with their original BOTA. Next year hopefully the Melbourne and Perth arcades will get on board, maybe even Townsville - could be 10 teams?

 

We (Pincadia) are already talking tactics for 2020 - bring it on :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just wanted to say thanks everyone for making the whole weekend an epic experience. As expected it came right down to the wire and I was literally biting my nails due to nerves at 6pm. It was fantastic having GameRoom and Arcadia join the battle but the absence of teams from Melbourne and Perth was definitely felt, would be great to ensure we get teams from both those cities in next year even if it isn't at a commercial venue. To see this comp grow to eight or even ten teams in the future would be incredible and I would love to see it come to a four or even five way logjam for 1st place in the team event. Who knows, we may even see a tie at somepoint if we keep going at this rate. Good work everyone, cannot wait until next year.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks to @Jimmy Nails for getting us involved this year.

 

GameRoom is just a small family hobby that is growing popular and this event has given us plenty of exposure.

 

Has been a stressful week (even taking the week off work) but the rewards have been tremendous.

 

We will compete in next years event, and with the new setup I built, we will be having regular monthly arcade comps.

 

Cheers, and see you all soon.

 

Danny.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Mates.

 

What a freaking event!!!!!

 

The intensity and drama in the final hours was some of the craziest I have been a part of.

 

Massive props to Pincadia for putting together an incredibly strong team. Will take every effort from Netherworld and the other teams next year to keep them from drinking from the Cup.

 

Massive congrats also to 1989 who rounded of the podium with a clear third place.

 

Also an incredible job from Arcadia and Gameroom Essentials for joining in for the first time. Watching the Arcadia stream it looked like an incredible venue and the rig that Danny put together at Gameroom was something to behold. He will know be able to compete in any comp, any games, any time.

 

John Bartkiw from BOTA USA was online watching throughout and managed the scoring system (right up to 2am local time in Seattle, THANK YOU JOHN!!) and he is hoping a bunch of venues would like to join in BOTA USA/WORLD next year. Netherworld competed this year so might be fun if we join forces and compete out of Pincadia next year. And if we can get some other States involved too they would be thrilled.

 

If you guys are anything like us maniacs at Netherworld, we are already talking strategy and potential game nominations for next year.

 

With that in mind if anyone has any feedback on the format or ideas for next year please let me know. Am thinking it might be good to push toward the USA model a little more by having 2 x 10 hour scoring windows with the top 10 overall players counting toward your team score. That way people can come and go if they have other commitments and those that want to grind and grind can grind until their heart in content.

.

Thanks again to everyone who put in time getting games together, venues prepped and spent time training to create possibly the best BOTA ever, anywhere.

 

A super massive congrats must go the Jon Tannahill who took out the best individual player award. Jon was the driving force behind the Netherworld team and has certainly cemented himself as one of the toughest arcade competitors in Australia. Congrats to the entire Netherworld team who put in hours of training and especially those that kept grinding right until the death knell. And The Cleaner. What a monster. Could watch that man freestyle on Amidar and Time Pilot for hours.

 

To Pincadia, although the rivalry is real, so is the love. Thank you for making this an incredible event.

 

To Johnny Bonde, I still love you mate. You will always be my #1 .

 

Bring on 2020

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Administrators

No way that Tannahill is a bastard ;)

 

Honestly, he's a gaming freak and a well deserved 1st place in my opinion. Great work @Tanna94

 

The tension at Pincadia was epic for us. Thanks for the love Jimmy and bring on next year. It's been said already many times but a really fun event and its great to see a competition for arcade gaming instead of all the pinball :p

 

Cheers,

 

Brad

 

Mates.

 

What a freaking event!!!!!

 

The intensity and drama in the final hours was some of the craziest I have been a part of.

 

Massive props to Pincadia for putting together an incredibly strong team. Will take every effort from Netherworld and the other teams next year to keep them from drinking from the Cup.

 

Massive congrats also to 1989 who rounded of the podium with a clear third place.

 

Also an incredible job from Arcadia and Gameroom Essentials for joining in for the first time. Watching the Arcadia stream it looked like an incredible venue and the rig that Danny put together at Gameroom was something to behold. He will know be able to compete in any comp, any games, any time.

 

John Bartkiw from BOTA USA was online watching throughout and managed the scoring system (right up to 2am local time in Seattle, THANK YOU JOHN!!) and he is hoping a bunch of venues would like to join in BOTA USA/WORLD next year. Netherworld competed this year so might be fun if we join forces and compete out of Pincadia next year. And if we can get some other States involved too they would be thrilled.

 

If you guys are anything like us maniacs at Netherworld, we are already talking strategy and potential game nominations for next year.

 

With that in mind if anyone has any feedback on the format or ideas for next year please let me know. Am thinking it might be good to push toward the USA model a little more by having 2 x 10 hour scoring windows with the top 10 overall players counting toward your team score. That way people can come and go if they have other commitments and those that want to grind and grind can grind until their heart in content.

.

Thanks again to everyone who put in time getting games together, venues prepped and spent time training to create possibly the best BOTA ever, anywhere.

 

A super massive congrats must go the Jon Tannahill who took out the best individual player award. Jon was the driving force behind the Netherworld team and has certainly cemented himself as one of the toughest arcade competitors in Australia. Congrats to the entire Netherworld team who put in hours of training and especially those that kept grinding right until the death knell. And The Cleaner. What a monster. Could watch that man freestyle on Amidar and Time Pilot for hours.

 

To Pincadia, although the rivalry is real, so is the love. Thank you for making this an incredible event.

 

To Johnny Bonde, I still love you mate. You will always be my #1 .

 

Bring on 2020

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Looked like an epic contest! Congrats Tannahil and NW :)

Great to see so many arcades getting amongst

 

Netherworld competed this year so might be fun if we join forces and compete out of Pincadia next year. And if we can get some other States involved too they would be thrilled.

If you guys are anything like us maniacs at Netherworld, we are already talking strategy and potential game nominations for next year.

 

You Aussie blokes would make a really strong team. Maybe I can persuade a couple of the CAG locals here to make the trip next year :) Would be awesome to take it down from the USA guys!!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Administrators
You Aussie blokes would make a really strong team. Maybe I can persuade a couple of the CAG locals here to make the trip next year :) Would be awesome to take it down from the USA guys!!

 

Anzacs take on the yanks! Yes!!

 

Brad

Link to comment
Share on other sites

With that in mind if anyone has any feedback on the format or ideas for next year please let me know. Am thinking it might be good to push toward the USA model a little more by having 2 x 10 hour scoring windows with the top 10 overall players counting toward your team score. That way people can come and go if they have other commitments and those that want to grind and grind can grind until their heart in content.

 

Couple of ideas/comments:

 

1. Not sure if we had a data entry problem or something else, but one of our players scores (Derek) didn't go through, we caught the error and rectified it with about 3 or so hours to go, which catapulted our team score upwards dramatically. I'm guessing it was using the website wrong rather than being a website error - but it mustn't have looked good for us to go from so far behind, to being in front like that. If it was a software issue, which I still doubt it was, then this needs to be fixed.

 

2. Not sure what information John Bartkiw's incredible website stores when scores are entered, but I'd like to see a time stamp on entries to ensure sandbagging is not an issue - if a 200k Pac-Man score is entered into the database minutes after another score from the same player, then you either know sandbanging is happening or that the player is not handing in their score immediately or it's not being entered immediately. I know it's a big effort, but maybe we need to look at the matchplay software that is used for pinball competitions - you can not move away from a machine until your score is entered; and if you do move away and have your score entered later, it's obvious from the software and timestamp that you didn't submit your score at the time you finished. There are obviously still ways around this, but it will go a long way towards stopping any chance of sandbagging or not having your score entered when you finish a game. Again, we were guilty of not entering scores immediately, I think we need to look at this in the future.

 

3. The above being said, I'd like to see the competition pause maybe 1 hour out from the end, at which time each arcade has 10-15 minutes to confirm all scores - and at that point the competition resumes and no previously entered scores can be changed, regardless of an error being found, the tournament can then resume but players may only improve on one of their scores. i.e. if they want to grind away at Burger Time and Space Invaders during that time, they can only choose one of those games to submit a better score on. The reason behind this, and we (Pincadia) could have been as guilty as the next, is that in the last 45 minutes of the tournament there did seem to be a disproportionately high score improvements considering the tournament ran for 8 hours.

 

4. I love the USA format of 2 days x 10 hours - you get to see the results at the end of day 1, then regroup as a team and talk tactics and improve on certain games. Talking about the USA format though, I'm not a major fan of the "minimum" team format that we used as per their competition (which I incorrectly understood prior to BOTA-USA/AU). If the maximum team size is 10 players, but the minimum scores counted is say 6 (6 being the smallest team this year - 1989) - it really counts against the teams that went out of their way to promote this event and get 10 players, which in this case was NW, 1989, Pincadia, Arcadia and Gameroom (no offense to the other arcades). All of the teams that put up 10 players had some fantastic scores which didn't count for their team because they weren't in the top 6 players from their respective arcades, doesn't seem fair on their skill levels to not acknowledge them as players in the final results. My suggestion is this - if the smallest team is 6 players, then arcades who have the maximum players (10) - then all 10 players should be able contribute scores and the best 6 scores from that arcade counts - hope this make sense.

 

We do need to draw a line though, this is supposed to be a fun tournament which it has been, we don't want to get too serious when we require every machine to be filmed or INPs to be recorded in real time, but it would be also be good to have a real time as possible leaderboard that doesn't rely on waiting for scores to be entered because a player doesn't hand in their scores immediately or a scorekeeper get's backed up with lots of scores to enter all at the same time.

 

Really looking forward to next year, and as with NW, Pincadia is already talking tactics for next year - including actually practicing as a group much more than we did :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

3. The above being said, I'd like to see the competition pause maybe 1 hour out from the end, at which time each arcade has 10-15 minutes to confirm all scores - and at that point the competition resumes and no previously entered scores can be changed, regardless of an error being found, the tournament can then resume but players may only improve on one of their scores. i.e. if they want to grind away at Burger Time and Space Invaders during that time, they can only choose one of those games to submit a better score on. The reason behind this, and we (Pincadia) could have been as guilty as the next, is that in the last 45 minutes of the tournament there did seem to be a disproportionately high score improvements considering the tournament ran for 8 hours.

 

This is an interesting point John, I would really love to hear more about your thinking behind it. I personally don't see what's wrong with people improving quite a bit in the final frenetic dash to the finish line as long as arcades aren't deliberately sandbagging. In the final hour people are scrambling to improve on as many games as they can which is quite a sight to behold and the final hours of the competition would be less exciting without this element in my opinion. Also arcades would run into a problem if more than one player need to improve on the same game in that final hour.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This is an interesting point John, I would really love to hear more about your thinking behind it. I personally don't see what's wrong with people improving quite a bit in the final frenetic dash to the finish line as long as arcades aren't deliberately sandbagging. In the final hour people are scrambling to improve on as many games as they can which is quite a sight to behold and the final hours of the competition would be less exciting without this element in my opinion. Also arcades would run into a problem if more than one player need to improve on the same game in that final hour.

 

Scrambling is one thing, but for so many "improved" scores to come is something different.

Edited by John73
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 5 months later...
  • 2 weeks later...

Looking forward to this again.

 

I'd like to suggest a couple of possible rule changes though, which shouldn't be too hard if the CAGTouraments website is used again:

 

1. For full disclosure, I believe the software that records the scores also timestamps when they are entered. It would be nice to get a full report of when scores are entered which would then mean that it's easy to police if multiple scores from one player are entered at once. Really, if we are serious about not allowing sandbagging, then a player should not be allowed to leave a machine and start a game on another (or the same machine) before their previous score is entered.

 

2. The way team scores are made up isn't really that fair. I think last year it was 10 to a team maximum? but in the end, the number of scores that were counted were only from your top X players where X was the size of the smallest team - with 6 being the smallest size. I do understand that because some of the other arcades had trouble finding 10 people, but it also made players redundant at arcades like Netherworld and Pincadia who went to the trouble to find 10 players, or in the case of Netherworld, have a play off to find their best 10 players. I'd suggest that if the minimum team is 6 players, and an arcade manages to get 10 players (if that's the max team size) - then all 10 players from that arcade can have their score included. To be honest, I think I did look at the scores from last year, and this would not have helped our team, it's just frustrating for those that have put time in to be in the 10 players for their arcade to have no impact on the result. It's unfortunate if other arcades can't get 10 players, but that also means that arcades that promote the event heavily, and try to get the maximum number of players don't receive an advantage for going above and beyond for the event.

 

In other words, if you get 10 players in your team, and your worst player gets 0 on all games except one, where they are the best player, their score should still get them 100 pts for that game.

 

3. Is there a way nominations from arcades can be kept secret and announced all at the same time? Not that I think it really made a difference last year, but some nominated and had their games up early, while others waited until the last minute.

 

Just my 2 cents.

 

:)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

100% agree with all of the above.

 

Will push again for venues to nominate a team captain and make sure all rules are being followed especially in regard to sandbagging. Time stamping will be a great way to keep track and having people not move from a machine until a score is recorded is a great idea. May mean venues will need multiple time keepers but that should be easy enough.

 

I think we discussed at the end of this years event, but I would like to suggest we open up the event to two full days of play. No qualifying day in house like previous years but simply two large windows for players to grind out their best scores. Teams can have an unlimited amount of entrants with the top 10 players scores going towards the team total.

 

With such a big window I feel it is not too much to ask to get even the smaller venues have 10 people come by throughout the 2 days. Also opens up the chance for players to come by even for a short time, punch out their games and try help the team along. Also gives the more committed players a massive chance to throw down big scores.

 

Also agree that noms should be private and submitted at once. Will consider having them sent to a third party so even I can't see them until they are final. Maybe we could even leave out who nominated what until after the event.

 

At this stage I have June 20th and 21st penciled in. Will send out save the dates and invitations in the second week of Jan.

 

BOTA2020. WOOP!!!!!

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Barcadia will be joining in but as I discussed with you Jimmy we have no interest in running our comps on Sundays does it really need to be Saturday and then Sunday for main tournament could we not have just the main comp on the Saturday and in house trials week prior to it

 

Sent from my SM-N976B using Aussie Arcade mobile app

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...

I think we discussed at the end of this years event, but I would like to suggest we open up the event to two full days of play. No qualifying day in house like previous years but simply two large windows for players to grind out their best scores. Teams can have an unlimited amount of entrants with the top 10 players scores going towards the team total.

 

Also agree that noms should be private and submitted at once. Will consider having them sent to a third party so even I can't see them until they are final. Maybe we could even leave out who nominated what until after the event.

 

At this stage I have June 20th and 21st penciled in. Will send out save the dates and invitations in the second week of Jan.

 

BOTA2020. WOOP!!!!!

 

2 Days would be awesome, and top 10 scores for each team would be great too. Would have to go back to Matchplay though wouldn't you as adding names into the BOTA website is an issue if someone rocks up.

 

I wouldn't worry about a 3rd party getting the nominations, we all trust you to hold them. You would of course need to look at what happens if two arcades nominate the same game - which arcade gets to choose a different game?

 

 

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Barcadia will be joining in but as I discussed with you Jimmy we have no interest in running our comps on Sundays does it really need to be Saturday and then Sunday for main tournament could we not have just the main comp on the Saturday and in house trials week prior to it

 

Sent from my SM-N976B using Aussie Arcade mobile app

 

If it's run over 2 days, I can't see that it would matter if you don't compete on Sunday, though this obviously puts your team at a disadvantage.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.

×
×
  • Create New...