Idea to potentially boost competitive activity and motivate newbies

[Ænima]

DISCLAIMER:
I am not a competitive player. I don't know what the scene has been like lately, aside from all of the threads that have been cropping up for the past year or two saying that competition is dead. I just have an idea. It may be stupid, but it's just a concept I'd like to throw out there.


So, what if we hold a tournament? "BEEN DONE BEFORE, ALWAYS FALLS FLAT" Yes, but what if there was a prize for the winner(s)? A money prize? If we had 10 benefactors donate $20USD each, that's a $200 pot. If we had 20 benefactors, that only requires a $10 donation each for the same $200 pot. This would be fine for a duel tournament where there's only 3 potential prize-winners (1st place, 2nd, 3rd), or a CTF tournament where the winner is a 3-player team. Anyone with a job and a PayPal should have no problem donating $10. That's the cost of, what, a lunch at Subway?

How would it work?
Probably via KickStarter to raise the funds for the prize. Contributors will receive a reward (t-shirt? Hissy plushie? IGOR keychain?) in addition to receiving recognition from the community.

When would this take place?
Probably next summer, when most college-age players get back from school. That gives us 9 months starting now to raise the necessary funds. If we can get at least get 10 people to donate $10 we'd have at least a $100 prize. Which isn't much, but hey it's enough incentive to get new/intermediate players to want to practice and get into the scene.

Who can enter?
No professionals or top-tier players. No aliasers. IP's would be checked.

Why this idea?
After reading countless threads where everyone repeats the same "every tournament fails", "players always flake out", "new players aren't motivated to continue in the scene", etc etc etc, I figured that money might be enough of a motivator to get players who are new to the scene to want to improve. Like i said before, i'm not a part of the scene, but I figured that I would just offer an idea that some people might like/hate or be able to build upon.

[Lollipop]

Money. Always. Work.
That is the rule nr 1 of life, and it always apply.

I wonder who would pay money to keep the competetive scene alive in a game that is from 1990's, I know that it is in the interest of the players here, but I can't see people paying, I just can't.
Why use kickstarter when you can just have a seperate bank (insert whatever it is called) where an admin can store the money?

[Ænima]

Why use kickstarter when you can just have a seperate bank (insert whatever it is called) where an admin can store the money?

What? You can't just create a "seperate" bank account or PayPal. It has to be tied to whoever makes it. A KickStarter, however, is an independent account that isn't tied to your credentials, but you still have the password to it.

Besides, if everybody deposits into one person's PayPal account, that person would have no way of distinguishing their own money from the money that was donated. A KickStarter keeps track of each donation, how much, and who it came from. It can also automatically send rewards to the donors, something you'd have to do manually if you just used PayPal.

[Lollipop]

I thought it was kind of obvious that I know the word account -.-

What I mean is that under the same account (I dunno with paypal) you can have several.. deposits? (whatever, I hope you know what I mean for crists sake (not really cristian)), my mother do in fact use several to organise everything, such as different payments as such (she got her own buisness, selling stuff)

I do see your points about kickstarter, though why give things to the donors? An alternate way to get the IGOR keychain? (I would probably happily pay 40$ for such one if my mother would allow it, heh)

[Hypnotoad]

Send me the money I'll handle it. I accept paypal.

[UnTrustable]

Money always works, but im afraid in this case it won't work.
I expect nobody is willing to fund. Not all will have a good paying jobs, so that they can fund this.
Besides, its a game, and basicly it should be the game itself that has to motivate the players.

Personally receiving respect is more motivation to me than any money prize.
I mean, in the past when i played a duel or a deathmatch game, and believe me,
i lost many and many times, they suddenly call me a noob, and more of those tags.
That, does not motivate me, so right now i have not played a deathmatch or a duel in years (aside All out WAR. That WAS FUN Team Deathmatch! ).

[Cruduxy]

Maybe a new school tournament?

/me gets shot and is never seen again

[Watermelon]

There's a money tourney in the works for higher tiered players for next year, but I'd be surprised if someone funded a lower tier tourney... and how do you stop tier slumming? People probably will to get $$$

[BJ Vynz]

So pretty much no one will donate until some random people have made the first move and donated about $60 or $40, eh?
You also can't stop very clever people from pretending to be lower tier. IP's come and go.

I'd donate if other people did. Notice how that goes, no one wants to until others do... but yeah, it's probably just not a good idea, you can't stop the pros from entering and owning the new guys.

I could always try making a big fat cacodemon cake but no one's gonna play for cake

[MotorWülf]

I'd be good for like 5-10 bucks I guess.
Maybe you could do a $50 prize and like, the winner gets a Zandronum bot named after them or something like that.

[Ænima]

So pretty much no one will donate until some random people have made the first move and donated about $60 or $40, eh?

I would be willing to donate as much as $50 to start things off.

[Hypnotoad]

Why make it lower tier only anyway? How do you determine when somebody is too good to be lower tier?

[Ænima]

Why make it lower tier only anyway?

If the purpose of the whole thing is to motivate newbies to train and get into the competitive scene, then having them play pro players (who will undoubtedly beat them) kind of defeats the point.

Why make it lower tier only anyway? How do you determine when somebody is too good to be lower tier?

No clue. I would say try-outs, but it's easy to pretend to suck in a try-out just to get in.

[Catastrophe]

No, they'd get spoiled and expect to win money every time they play.

[BJ Vynz]

I think as long as there is no clear way to identify new comers the entire idea falls apart. The only easy way to do a tournament is to let anyone and everyone get in on it.

[CloudFlash]

*whispers repeatedly 'aimbot, wallhack, aimbot, wallhack' over and over again*

[Ænima]

*whispers repeatedly 'aimbot, wallhack, aimbot, wallhack' over and over again*

They'd be caught like, right away. With an event of this size, I'm sure that there would be plenty of spectators, all recording demos. And as a precautionary measure, the winner will have demos of his gameplay reviewed before he receives the prize.

[Condor]

A fine idea as long as you realize this involves everyone. It's wrong to think of 'newbies' as such meaningless things when in a competitive setting where money is at stake. New players/clans can only get good by playing those who already know how to play. In another old fps I play, 1 vs 1 tourneys or just simple monthly tournaments can always be arranged when there's a prize. The first thing we must realize though is how many people will be willing to participate. Old clans are pretty broken up or inactive, and it would take a little while to round up casual players/clans from servers. So first, before anyone starts throwing down money (which I will if this works out btw) we need PROPAGANDA which will allow more players to be aware of our community and evolve from being nameless pubbers we see in servers. We will also need an INCENTIVE that will attract new up-coming players to the competitive scene and allow us to arrange a better tournament. And lastly, we need UNITY to allow everything to go smoothly. As far as I'm concerned, the doom community kinda splits itself up according to region (ex: NADA) and source port...so if we're not all aware of who is who, then we end up setting up a half-baked idea.

And yes, I'm aware servers always mention their websites, admins, contact info...but if we don't do all things I have in caps in one coordinated movement, pubbers will remain nameless. I guess the the one other factor we should realize is "who" the current zandro community is. We're all people of various ages and personalities, but do we have the commitment and attitude to step up and make this idea work? It's all up to you guys in the end.

[IdeIdoom]

Boost competitive activity with a sparkle of greediness? Well, newbies don't really check this part of the forum, or hell, the forum itself. Unless announcer in-game or on IRC, the only ones who might get in are people who check the forum on a regular basis and those who are in clans. Though, since this is a low-tier tournament, I won't be joining in for the sake of making it fair for the newbies.

[Hammerfest-]

This idea was discussed before. I highly doubt it will work.

No one is gonna put money in. I can probably go ahead and assume that people that would be able to play are mostly people who are still in high school and have no source of income.