Saturday TOD COs

[clouds]

Only tell me when and........I'll be there.

[AndyH]

My squad (The Wings of Death) have just registerd to fly in the saturday TOD.

Our normal squad night is on Sunday where we normaly have all of our members there, however we are a small squad (8 active members).

I have attended the last two Saturday TODs as a guest (thanks Kraits and Firebirds), but I can only just manage to get myself a guest slot and most of the other WOD pilots want to take part also.

I would suggest the following for increasing the number of pilots who want to take part and actualy turn up / get to fly:

1, Allow smaller squads to participate, even if you need to pair a couple of squads together.

2, Allow a number of individual pilots to register, they can be allocated to make up the numbers in the smaller squadrons.

3, Sunday would be better, Saturday is a busy day/night and her indoors is used to me being on my PC on Sunday. Most UK/EU squads seem to have squad night on Sunday evening.

4, Loosen up your rules on 66% min 120% max, if a squad is oversubscribed on one night there will always be another squad with a spare slot or two.


AndyH

[sling322]

Originally posted by AndyH

1, Allow smaller squads to participate, even if you need to pair a couple of squads together.

We do allow small squads to participate.  Off the top of my head I believe we have a slot for squads as small as 4-6.  If you cant get 4 guys, book a couple of guests.  

2, Allow a number of individual pilots to register, they can be allocated to make up the numbers in the smaller squadrons.

These would basically be walkons.  For scoring purposes though, they need to be in a squad in the arena before the event starts.  Its definitely something we can look at.

3, Sunday would be better, Saturday is a busy day/night and her indoors is used to me being on my PC on Sunday. Most UK/EU squads seem to have squad night on Sunday evening.

It seems that most squads are now saying that Sunday would be better for them.  My question is, if most squads have squad nites on Sunday, would you be willing to spend squad nite in the TOD if we changed it to Sundays?

4, Loosen up your rules on 66% min 120% max, if a squad is oversubscribed on one night there will always be another squad with a spare slot or two.

This I dont think we can do.  The reason for the min and max participation is for balance.  Nobody wants to fly when their side is outnumbered.  In fact, we are looking at ways in the Friday TOD to limit squads to just 1 or 2 more than what they have as their max registered number.  We have had some instances where it became really lopsided and we would like to limit that.

I thank you all for the time to read and respond to this thread.  We will take all of these suggestions under advisement and we should be announcing the next weekend TOD shortly.

[Esme]

Unless it were not at an anti-social time for Europeans, TODs on Sundays could well ensure that Kampfgeschwader 2 did not take part.

With all due respect to peoples religions, various faiths have various holy days, particularly Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays - which if we avoided all of them would just about kill TOD's altogether, no?  And not everyone is either religous, or if religous of one of the Abrahamic faiths (which tend to regard one of Friday-Sunday as holy).

In my opinion, from 7pm UK time on  Friday through to 7pm UK time on Sunday is about the range that should be considered for TOD start times.  Earlier than that on Friday doesnt give folk chance to get home from work (and even 7pm UK time may be too early for those on CET) whilst later than  that on Sunday is distinctly anti-social for those who have to work on Monday mornings.

I would prefer Friday evenings UK time or Saturdays; I will consider Sundays if the timing is early enough. I would like to put in a plea that we NOT consider accesibility for US members here, because they have the Friday TODs*.  In the previous game I flew in, stuff was arranged for the convenience of folk in the USA, so few Europeans took part; so it then seems that because of low European involvement it was thought there wasn't much NEED for stuff to be run at Euro-friendly times. Kind of a positive feedback loop effectively kiling off much chance of much being organised for Europeans.

Esme
CO, Kampfgeschwader 2 "Holzhammer"

*Yes, I know that not all US members will be able to make Friday TODs. Not all Europeans wil be able to make TODs arranged at Euro-friendly times, either. The important thing being to offer as much variety as possible to all, increasing everyone's chances of being able to attend something.

[Flossy]

Originally posted by Esme
Unless it were not at an anti-social time for Europeans, TODs on Sundays could well ensure that Kampfgeschwader 2 did not take part.

Iwould think (hope!) that if the Saturday TODs were rescheduled to Sundays, they would be at the same time - 3.00 pm Eastern time, 8.00 pm UK time and 9.00 pm CET.  I wouldn't want them to be any later, as I like to be able to play in the MA for a while at the end of the day and, as it is, it would be after 10.00 pm before I got done when doing Setup CM duty (I can't leave early after getting shot down like the participants....   ).  Much earlier would mean those in Pacific time zones being tied up with church services.  3.00 pm I think has long been proved (certainly in AW) a good compromise time.  

[Bannock]

Originally posted by sling322
I need to know what the problem is.  

What can we do to get the participation back up where it was before?  

.......  I am beginning to get the feeling that we are wasting our time trying to keep fielding a Sat version of the TOD and it really bugs me because of the very vocal cries we had in the past about holding a Euro-friendly version of the TOD.

Would a different time benefit us?  Would a different day be better?  Please let me know what you think would be better....if its something we can do, we will give it a shot......

Well, sir, IMHO it would probably benefit as a repeat of the Friday TOD, for those folks on shifts, or different time zones....  Seems an awful chore to put out two TOD's in the same month, using two different sets of terrain, etc.

Just a thought, really, but maybe worth a shot, eh?

[Ripsnort]

Speaking for Swoop here, whos the CO for MAG-33.

Swoop is out of AH for a short bit, his mother is ill.  I'll contact him and get a report.  So far, our numbers turn out for Sat TOD have been low (5 avg. last Sat. TOD)

[Bannock]

  Good grief, Rip...!  Is it the timing of the event?  I cannot imagine it being lack of interest at all.

Hope 'we' can get the numbers up soon, 'cause it would surely suck big time to lose the Saturday TOD.


Odee

PS  I'm adding Swoop to my prayers that all goes well with his mother and family.