I've been notified by PM that ICGTC is signing up for the event with Arkano as team captain so I'm penciling them as tentative in the 6th and final league spot. Their registration will become final when they officially post to the thread. Registration is now closed unless one of the leagues has to withdraw based on a date/time conflict.
Now it's time to get the captains together here on the thread and finalize the date/time first and then the format. Below is the agenda and I'm hoping we can finalize at least 1-5 over the next 48-72 hours.
- Date/Time
- Format
- Bracket Selection
- Car Choices
- Additional Rules & Regs
- Test Session Schedule
Here are the initial proposals for the above discussion points. Items 2-4 depend completely on all 6 teams agreeing on point 1 -- a single agreed upon date and time. If we can't come to an agreement on a single time slot we'll have to adjust the format so a single slot is the preferred option. We need to tackle that point first and ASAP.
Date/Time
Saturday, December 3, 2011 @ 18:00 PM GMT
OR
Saturday, December 3, 2011 @ 20:00 PM GMT
Duration of ~3 hours depending on the format chosen
Format
Bracket style championship.
Semi-final round includes two lobbies with each lobby consisting of 3 teams of 4 drivers. The top 3 drivers from each league score points for their team. The top 2 teams from each semi-final advance to the final, but only the top 3 point scoring drivers from the teams advance.
The final round will include the 4 advancing teams with their 3 point scoring drivers from the semi-final round. All drivers will count toward the team points for the final round.
[Optional] A consolation lobby could be set up simultaneous to the finals lobby for all drivers that do not advance.
Using this format each lobby is limited to 12 drivers which will help reduce network lag issues. Each lobby could also include one non participating marshal/observer.
- 30 minute pre-race practice session (two lobbies / optional)
- 15 minute live quali for the semi-finals
- 45 minute semi-final races (simultaneous)
- 30 minute break to tally points, assign drivers to the 2nd lobby and reorganize
- 15 minute live quali for the finals
- 45 minute final race (optionally a simultaneous consolation race)
Bracket Selection
Random draw to determine semi-final lobby assignment for each team. We can set this up so it's observable live by the team captains if requested.
Car choices
Either we come up with options that would entice two league to pick a car other than a GTR or we allow teams #5 and #6 to pick one of the GT-Rs and just live with a couple possible duplicates. If we assign the brackets first we can at least ensure no duplicate cars in the semi-final lobbies since there are 4 GTRs and there will only be 3 teams in each lobby.
Additional Rules & Regs
TBD. e.g. conflict/incident resolution, etc. With the proposed format we will have a very limited time to do any replay reviews so we have to make any rules clear, strict and easy to enforce. One of the reasons to have 3 of 4 drivers score points is it may make some incidents irrelevant to the results and/or at least reduce the impact of those incidents. Also we may want to allow a couple on track observers during qualification to enforce OLR rules during quali since it's easy to abuse the runoff areas at a couple spots at Spa.
Test sessions
The tests would be run with two primary purposes. First, to get all participating drivers familiar with the lobby procedures. We likely will have cars of different regulations so we'll have to stage entry into the course from the lobby. Second, we will want to know ahead of time if we'll face any "invisible" driver type network issues and give us time to work those out or at least become aware of them ahead of time. Participating drivers will be required to have a NAT 1 or NAT 2 connection if we have any hope of a "network-clean" event (but even that is not a guarantee). NOTE: Lobby hosts must have NAT 1 connection.
OK. Let's get to work on point #1.
Do any teams have an issue with December 3 at 18:00 GMT?. In North america that's 1:00 PM Eastern and 10:00 AM Pacific.
Please limit response to only team captains at this point until we get points 1-5 finalized. I'd like to get a response on the proposed time from all 6 team captains by the end of day tomorrow. If you have a serious conflict with the proposed time please provide several alternatives as close as possible to this time.