Whine! WTF with Bigweek Registration?

[Vermillion]

Sorry guys, but he has a definite point.  I don't want to start a war here, but the registration process was screwed.  No warning on registration other than "registration is open soon" (is soon, tomorrow, 3 days, or 2 weeks away???).

If your going to do a "first come, first serve" registration event. You schedule the registration well ahead of time, and tell everyone "Registrations Open on Nov XXX, at XX:XX time".  And get the word out.

That way all people have an equal opportunity at the slots. Not just the people that read the boards 10 times a day, or the ones just lucky enough to happen to read the "announcement" which was originally posted in the general forums of the board.

You also announce the days of the event PRIOR to the registration dates, so people and squads have some idea ahead of time, if they are available on those dates. Not scrabbling at the last second trying to organize themselves.

No matter what happens now, good or bad in the scenario, the registration is going to leave a bad taste in the mouths of alot of the community of AH.

 

I'm sorry to say it, but registration was handled extremely poorly, and unfairly to the community at large.

[ 11-09-2001: Message edited by: Vermillion ]

[pugg666]

I have to agree with Verm on this one....
with all the time and effort you guys are going to be putting into this event, the registration was, well, half-assed at best.

[Kratzer]

The benefit to flying LW iron is that you basically are assured a spot in whatever aircraft you want... even if you take a week to register  

[Nash]

There are lots of open slots available. *Somebody's* gotta fly LW, and *somebody's* gotta fly buffs.

It's kinda like ya wanted to beat eachother in the race to Allied fighters. If everyone were in Allied fighters we wouldn't have much of a scenario would we?

No matter *how* we would have gone about this, there would have been people pissed off because they didn't get Allied fighters, for whatever reason... "yah, you gave us a specific reg openning time but it wasn't good for me cuz I'm at work at that time!"... I mean.. Come on.

As it stands, there are lotsa slots open... If you want to fly in this, ya gotta get into one of those slots. Somebody had to anyways, right? You may be pissed off that it's you... but all that means is that somebody else would have been pissed off because it was them.

Verm - If we had given a specific time like you suggest, we'd have the Euros or Aussies or North Americans freaking out because some folks would have to stay up until 3 am and "that aint fair dammit"... or someone else was on a business trip.

I *wanna* make this better but I just dunno how. Again - a limited number of AC allowed in an arena, and someone's gotta fly LW and buffs. After that, what can we do? We don't like folks being pissed off. That's not why we do this. If we can fix things of course we will.

Jordi - good idea. I'll see if we can get a reserve list integrated into this somehow.

[jordi]

Dang - 2 good ideas in 2 days - but I did steal both from what we did in AW.

[hblair]

You didn't screw up Nash. People were gonna be left out of Allied fighters no matter what. There's more people who wanna fly them than there are the fighters themselves. People are gonna get left out either way. If you'd have announced a certain day/time that registration opens, too many people would have been online at that time. Then we'd have to hear the sob stories of how the poor guys did like they were supposed to do but weren't able to get a slot.
Catch22.

The faithful scenario pilots will fly whatever they're given this time and hope for their ride next time.

[texter]

Originally posted by Vermillion:
Sorry guys, but he has a definite point.  I don't want to start a war here, but the registration process was screwed.  No warning on registration other than "registration is open soon" (is soon, tomorrow, 3 days, or 2 weeks away???).

If your going to do a "first come, first serve" registration event. You schedule the registration well ahead of time, and tell everyone "Registrations Open on Nov XXX, at XX:XX time".  And get the word out.

That way all people have an equal opportunity at the slots. Not just the people that read the boards 10 times a day, or the ones just lucky enough to happen to read the "announcement" which was originally posted in the general forums of the board.

You also announce the days of the event PRIOR to the registration dates, so people and squads have some idea ahead of time, if they are available on those dates. Not scrabbling at the last second trying to organize themselves.

No matter what happens now, good or bad in the scenario, the registration is going to leave a bad taste in the mouths of alot of the community of AH.

   

I'm sorry to say it, but registration was handled extremely poorly, and unfairly to the community at large.

[ 11-09-2001: Message edited by: Vermillion ]

having gone through all of this before (http://www.smguild.org/)

I'm kind of glad I'm nothing but a luftwaffle pie lot this time.  

Tex
should be a manual on that site that might be useful

[Tumor]

Guyz, find something worthwhile to argue about lol, like MORE scenarios.  That way nobudy has to squeak  .  Uhhm...not as though they won't anyway.

Tumor

[ 11-10-2001: Message edited by: Tumor ]

[Blue Mako]

Originally posted by Nash:
[QB]There are lots of open slots available. *Somebody's* gotta fly LW, and *somebody's* gotta fly buffs. [QB]

Thats true BUT the way the registration is set up is very poor.

You have to register a PREFERENCE but you can't enter your preference because it's already been taken up????  Is that entering a preference? NO.

If you are calling for preferences then don't assign slots based on that.  Register the preferences, no matter who wants what then you assign the slots.

As it is, why even bother registering second and third choices if they are assigned based on a first come, first served basis?

IMO Verm is right, this was a very half assed way of doing the register.

SCRAP IT AND TRY AGAIN I SAY.

At least let us put a preference in for fighters if that is what we prefer.

[Replicant]

I can understand Verms point of view, it would have been nice to have actually set a 'registration open on ** date'.

BUT, I just want to take part in Big Week so I honestly don't mind what I fly.  There were still fighter slots open to fly when I registered but I opted for the bomber again because you mostly get more flying that way!  

Regards

Nexx

[Creamo]

 all ya want Verm.

"No matter what happens now, good or bad in the scenario, the registration is going to leave a bad taste in the mouths of alot of the community of AH.

Not so much until you brought it to everyone’s attention.

I figure there will be a few not on "AH Anal MEDS" that will live and just join the fun without all the goofy BBS personal scars, such as a over sight by well-meaning involved AH scenario promoters to make a event happen.

Maybe email them hints next time? What a concept.

[moose]

eh..

I know it sucks Midnight not to get *your* ride, but sometimes ya gotta bite the bullet. I drove a Panzer for all 5 frames of Afrika Korps and instead of being bored, I had a damn good time. And i'd do it again given the COs were the same. (Rip, Dinger)

I'm sure that next time around you'll be one of the 1st to get his pick but hblair is right - even if the time for registration had been announced you would still have had people not getting their rides. There's hardly any way to make everyone happy.

Perhaps a solution to this problem is a random lottery to decide who gets what plane. Have a sign up period of say, 3 days, and at the end of those 3 days it's closed off and the pilots and squads get run through a random program to decide who gets what, with maybe increased chances for your preference.

(not that i could ever write the algorithims for that program, but it's just a thought)

Ah well. LW leather is much more comfortable then that fuzzy Allied crap. Those pansys are going down! Join the winning side!

[Goner]

Originally posted by funkedup:
Midnight I see a lot of guys registered for P-51 who have done their part flying bombers in previous scenarios.  Suck it up and do your part.

you make it sound as if flying the buffs is a 2nd rate job where the people end up who couldn't get in the fiters ...
that's probably the biggest difference between AH and the AW folk that are now joining ...
for (most of) us, the arena is only practice (tm Moggy) for scenarios, to you a scenario seems just another night flying your favourite ride.

just sayin' ...  

Goner

[Creamo]

Told ya.

[Dowding]

I can only echo what Nash, Exile and several others have already pointed out. To please everyone is impossible.

From personal experience of Afrika Corps and Hostile Shores, I didn't really care what aircraft I was flying in. What mattered was the feeling of being part of a huge team fighting a small war against the enemy. The Immmersion Factor. It's the part I loved about those scenarios and its the reason I got involved with the CM design team - to make scenarios that are as immersive, and therefore fun, as possible. And to bring as many to AH as possible, while keeping quality high.

As for the registration process - it is two stage. Everything is scheduled and planned out so the event runs in December, but before then email confirmation of attendance is required for you to secure your spot. Some people might not be able to make it, so there might be scope to shuffle people around based on the preferences you specify. There might not.

banana has already explained why walkons are not permitted. Frankly, it's a logistical nightmare to organise while trying to get the event to kick off at the required time. It's far better to have everyone knowing what they are doing, where to go and who to speak to before they enter the arena.

The idea is definitely not to p*ss people off. The idea is to run a fun, historical-as-possible event.