NAF and PBeM

Ghost of Pariah · Post by **Ghost of Pariah** » Tue Feb 04, 2003 2:49 pm

That doesn't solve the prob or answer my question. Even if I sponsored a tourney it would only be once a year at most. So if I sponsored a tournament and made it to maybe one other one in the same year (not likely!) I might have 2 under my belt.
My question is; will this keep me ranked lower than someone who attends 4 in one year just because they are in his backyard? I'm not trying to sound bitchy. Just wanna know. The hard facts are that I would love to go to a tournament but as of yet it hasn't happened so it's likely that I'll only ever make it to mayeb one a year. Is that going to be worth it for me to join the NAF? Or am I going to be perpetually last because DeathWing has the good luck to live close to many tournies?

200 all in? See I didn't even get to hotels, meals, beer, spending scratch, or the price of the ticket. My costs are simply getting my butt there and back.

roysorlie · Post by **roysorlie** » Tue Feb 04, 2003 2:53 pm

Hey, Everybody should come to Norway. Stavanger will do fine! Hehe. beutiful nature, beautiful women, and.. oh crap. Norway sucks. Everything costs a foot and an arm. Nature is generally cold here, but the women really are beautiful.

But travel is expensive. Would cost me the equivilalant of around 600$ for a decent trip to england to play Bloodbowl.

I mean, are you guys aware of the prices in this godforsaken country?

A new volkswagen Passat would cost bloddy 50.000$

But I only play Table top BB. Maybe there should be some way to play tournies locally, through some local, official NAF thing. ?? Hosted by NAF coaches in their respective country?

Ghost of Pariah · Post by **Ghost of Pariah** » Tue Feb 04, 2003 2:58 pm

Yeah but in Norway you have the best spent taxes of any nation in the world! Your government needs to run money management courses to ours!

And I have seen the women! Tech TV did a thing about Nokia and all the cool tech stuff in Norway and they walked up and down a street filled with tall leggy blondes. It was like some bizarre Aryan Swimsuit Video!

Grumbledook · Post by **Grumbledook** » Tue Feb 04, 2003 3:01 pm

Like i said pariah, going to the tournament doesn't mean your ranking is going to be better. If you go to loads of tournaments and do badly then your ranking will plumet. So if you go to one and win it, there is a great chance you will have a higher ranking than players who go to loads.

Yes deathwing has been to more tournaments than many, but he didn't do very well at spikey or dutch open and his ranking is probably rather poor (sorry mate).

The more tournaments you go to the more chances you have to losing games. Also if you lose a game to someone who is ranked a lot lower than you, then your ranking will drop more than if you lose to someone of a higher or similar ranking to you.

Again to reiterate, going to lots more tournaments than other people does not mean you will have a better ranking. Its about how you perform in the events you take part in that matters.

Also the bigger the tournament the more ranking points are at risk/reward. A bad showing at the blood bowl will drop your ranking far more than it would at a smaller event. So just going to these doesn't make much of a difference.

Hope that clears it up and if I have got anything wrong I am sure one of the NAF guys will correct me.

lawquoter · Post by **lawquoter** » Tue Feb 04, 2003 3:02 pm

PBeM would really expand the options for a lot of us out here, as I mentioned above and as Pariah has so succinctly stated. Putting aside the result of fate, the comparative areas of North America and the UK/Central Europe really, in my view, illustrate the need for this option if the NAF is to be representative of a large majority of participants. Assuming this is a primary purpose in establishing the organization, PBeM should be considered as an alternative route. The reality here in the States is that local leagues are few and far between. There are no leagues to speak of here in the great state of Missouri (that I am aware of), nor Kansas for that matter (same caveat). The known leagues that run tournaments that are sanctioned are, as Pariah pointed out, out on the east coast, or up in Canada or along the U.S./Canada border. I submit that for those of us in the central, southern, or western parts of the nation the cost would be prohibitive to continually make tournaments on a consistent enough basis to make the NAF membership provide the benefits that it is intended to provide.

Now, on the otherhand, should PBeM become the option that I hope it will, the question would be how to administer it so that it would be able to be accurately woven into the seams of the NAF.

I know I'm not "demanding" PBeM to become an intrical part of the NAF. I think I am asserting that if the NAF is to be the world representative body of coaches, that those of us who are not able to meet standard NAF ranking requirements not be completely left out in the cold. I suppose some form of representation is all we're interested in, and PBeM, even if given its own independent ranking system (divorced, say from table top), would probably be enough to open the doors to a greater number of people.

Ghost of Pariah · Post by **Ghost of Pariah** » Tue Feb 04, 2003 3:05 pm

Ya know a PBeM tournament could be fun too!

The NAF presents the TALK BLOOD BOWL INVITATIONAL!

Huh? What about something like that?

Grumbledook · Post by **Grumbledook** » Tue Feb 04, 2003 3:08 pm

Of course if you lot insist on living in the sticks not a lot I can do about that ;]

I would be all for pbem and javabowl being integrated but there is the question of integrity. Personally I wouldn't play them for NAF points, certainly not javabowl in its current beta state.

neoliminal · Post by **neoliminal** » Tue Feb 04, 2003 3:20 pm

Pariah wrote: My question is; will this keep me ranked lower than someone who attends 4 in one year just because they are in his backyard? I'm not trying to sound bitchy. Just wanna know. The hard facts are that I would love to go to a tournament but as of yet it hasn't happened so it's likely that I'll only ever make it to mayeb one a year. Is that going to be worth it for me to join the NAF? Or am I going to be perpetually last because DeathWing has the good luck to live close to many tournies?

Here's the deal.

The ranking is based on many factors. One of them the the potential strength of the competition you play against. Obviously if you only play the same 8 people over and over, that's not a lot of information for the system to use as a world ranking. In such a scenario, those 8 coaches would end up basically ranking against each other.

Now if one of them goes to a big event, say the Blood Bowl, and he proves that he's world class material, then when he comes home he's going to have a lot of NAF points. Way more than anyone else in the local enviroment. Over time, these points will be spread out to the local coaches... based on the relative rankings of those local coaches.

So imagine the best Blood Bowl player in the world only play 8 other coaches on a weekly basis. He could theoretically become the highest ranked player in the world *if* the other coaches went to tournament and upon returning lost to him consistently.

It wouldn't be a fast process, but that's the price you pay for not going to tournaments.

neoliminal · Post by **neoliminal** » Tue Feb 04, 2003 3:25 pm

Grumbledook wrote: I would be all for pbem and javabowl being integrated but there is the question of integrity. Personally I wouldn't play them for NAF points, certainly not javabowl in its current beta state.

One of the founding principals of NAF is that if two coaches agree that they are playing Blood Bowl, then they can play for NAF points. Both coaches *must* agree, however. This is exactly how house rules are resolved and how we allow different tournament styles to work. As long as both people know the rules and agree to play, then NAF will sanction it.

Ghost of Pariah · Post by **Ghost of Pariah** » Tue Feb 04, 2003 3:41 pm

Thanks Neo, I guess that does make sense and does sound fair.

I like the idea of a TBB invitational. lol Would the NAF sanction that?

neoliminal · Post by **neoliminal** » Tue Feb 04, 2003 4:10 pm

Yes and no.

The first rule of NAF sanctioning is that it has to be as widely accesible as possible, so an invitational might not work. However, if you advertised it opening (to placed other than the TBB) and allowed anyone to join, then yes.

You could also work with me on the side, if you like, and we could work something out.

martynq · Post by **martynq** » Tue Feb 04, 2003 4:18 pm

Would it be worth waiting until the NAF website becomes active before running this tournament? Otherwise, the only people who could gain NAF ratings would be those who could already attend a tournament.

Martyn

Deathwing · Post by **Deathwing** » Tue Feb 04, 2003 4:22 pm

Pariah wrote:That doesn't solve the prob or answer my question. Even if I sponsored a tourney it would only be once a year at most. So if I sponsored a tournament and made it to maybe one other one in the same year (not likely!) I might have 2 under my belt.
My question is; will this keep me ranked lower than someone who attends 4 in one year just because they are in his backyard? I'm not trying to sound bitchy. Just wanna know. The hard facts are that I would love to go to a tournament but as of yet it hasn't happened so it's likely that I'll only ever make it to mayeb one a year. Is that going to be worth it for me to join the NAF? Or am I going to be perpetually last because DeathWing has the good luck to live close to many tournies?

200 all in? See I didn't even get to hotels, meals, beer, spending scratch, or the price of the ticket. My costs are simply getting my butt there and back.

Ok, as Grumble said, it goes up as well as down. Roughly speaking (assuming everything is level) my coach rating for Orcs has dropped by something like 7 points this weekend to 143 or so. If you submit one loss by Pbem then yours would drop to something like 148.5. So you're not going to be perpetually last....(but I might well be the rate it's going!) You need to remember that it goes down as well as up. You get squat for just being able to attend tournies. Both my Helf and Orc ratings are below (or round about) starting point. So to answer your question, not being able to attend as many is not going to hurt your ranking any in comparison to guys like me. Having said that, the guys that both are able to attend more and consistently do well are liable to be towards the top, but I guess that's the point of the thing. It's always going to difficult to rank anybody who only plays in their backyard, even if it's just circumstance. Bottom line is that to have an fair ranking, you need to play against other ranked players. Anything else is just a lottery.

The other thing is that the ranking system is just a part of the NAF. True, it's probably the thing that people are most excited about, but there's gonna be a wealth of other stuff too, it's not simply a 'Tournament body'.

As for £200 all in...remember that's around $325 US. Nine of us from TBB rented an apartment, it was cold, draughty and had very limited hot water.
It was however, a lot cheaper than a hotel, but still worked out over $150 US each for the 3 nights..flights for LF and I worked out around $125..plus over $25 to get to the airport, and $10 entry (for NAF)..chuck in some taxi and train fares and you're looking at about $325 without spending anything on food or drink. So it's hardly easy and/or dirt cheap..in fact the Dutch Open and the BB means just about every spare penny has been saved since Xmas, and I might be straight sometime during April.
You're making it sound like it's all close and cheap...it's not. There's no question I'm going to have to miss tournies this year because of cost, and pick and choose what I can attend (and still have to make sacrifices to get to those..).
And after all that, I get home more often than not with a lower NAF ranking than when I started!

Any clearer mate?

Khankill · Post by **Khankill** » Tue Feb 04, 2003 4:33 pm

I like the idea of the TBB PBeM tourney, once “Any day now” becomes a few weeks ago. I would think that sometime after the summer convention season is over would be a good time for round 1. That would give NAF members that attended The Blood Bowl and The Gen-Con “Phil Bowl” points, prior to the start of the tourney. Those could lend nicely to seating for the first round of any such tournament. One other thing to take into account for any such endeavor is timing. It would be possible, and probable for peoples NAF ranking to change during the time needed to complete a game in a PBeM Tournament. I believe the best way would be to use the player rankings at time of game completion; this would probably present the least headache to the NAF number crunchers.

phil · Post by **phil** » Tue Feb 04, 2003 5:26 pm

Khankill wrote:The Gen-Con “Phil Bowl” points

the WHAT?