The World Cup Discussion Thread (OOC, Version IV)

[Sarzonia]

Ok, senior moment then because I did see that and I forgot.

[Krytenia]

I can see both Farfadillis' and Sarzonia's points on the CoH host vote matter.

I think the issue in this case is that even though the WC85 and CoH77 bids are entirely separate animals, they were presented together. There will be an unavoidable bias towards or against the CoH bid based on how the qualifiers are handled by the hosts, irrespective of whether the WC hosts are involved in CoH hosting or vice versa.

The contrary issue is, as FFR touched upon, the disenfranchisement of hosts not actually involved in hosting X tournament due to being "bid-adjacent", which can be seen as a tad unfair.

I wouldn't call any of these viewpoints "wrong", so we may have to look for a compromise on this issue.

My suggestion is that "Vilitan Plan" bids (or similar) only exclude all of the bidders when the bids are presented together. It's also not an ideal solution, but then again it's only a suggestion; feel free to debate and/or ignore.

[Riennic Isles]

Just to be clear: Neither Mriin nor I have any control whatsoever over how the CoH is handled - at least not moreso than the average user. We are not a part of the CoH bid, in much the same way that Zwang and Kels will not be taking part in organizing the World Cup proper.

As far as I know, this is how it worked in World Cups 70, 73 and 82. It's not a "loophole" or, indeed, anything new. I also find the notion that the Vilitan model was created to have a two-vote advantage in a CoH vote a bit ridiculous, if I'm honest.

Completely agree with this sentiment. I don't believe being part of a 4-man hosting team during WCQs incentivises the hosts of the WC proper to vote one way or another.

In other words, while such bids are presented as four hosts, two for the World Cup and two for the Cup of Harmony, in procedural terms the World Cup vote only appoints all four to scorinate the World Cup (qualifiers + final). That vote has no bearing in procedural terms on the Cup of Harmony vote - say something came up in the interim so Kelssek and Zwangzug decide they're not going to bid for the CoH after all. Farfadillis and Mriin are, procedurally speaking, not involved in the Cup of Harmony vote at all, and neither are the four users involved in a bid involving multiple tournaments (as these are technically two separate bids which present themselves as a single bid).

This. If people are so hung up about hosts potentially abusing Vilitan-style bids to gain a leg up in voting, we could simply disallow bidding for multiple tournaments in one bid. To use the winning WC85 bid as an example, Farf/Mriin/Kels/Zwang would bid for the WC as part of a four-man hosting team, and only for the WC, period, without any mention of the CoH. If Kels/Zwang then wanted to bid for the CoH, they would be free to do so independently of Farf/Mriin.

if one thinks about Vilitan-style bids in these terms, it becomes quite clear that there is no actual connection between the hosting of the WC and the CoH, and therefore such bids should not materially affect the CoH host vote in any way. It is only implied by the nature of the Vilitan-style bid, which gives the appearance of linking both sets of hosts.

EDIT - Ninja'd by Kry, but the point stands regardless.

[Newmanistan]

There will be an unavoidable bias towards or against the CoH bid based on how the qualifiers are handled by the hosts, irrespective of whether the WC hosts are involved in CoH hosting or vice versa.

The discussion on the topic is fine, but the bolded part here is something that cannot be overlooked. Did it benefit Kels/Zug somewhat that they were associated with World Cup team? Sure, maybe it did. Now, what needs to also be addressed is, did it hinder Kels/Zug that they were associated with the World Cup team? As in, did, in this example, the Drawkland/Delaclava bid gain votes from nations who did not like how their qualifying campaign went?

I would bet that where Kels/Zug may have benefited, that it was also cancelled out by those who didn't vote for them for the very same reason.

Let's not lose sight of that when we vote. I will be voting against this amendment.

[Nephara]

If you maybe, potentially, get a slight advantage in your CoH bid for scorinating half the WCQ, you deserve it.

[Mriin]

World Cup 85 Host Announcement

The finals group draw is up in the RP thread OP. Groups will be randomized & fixtures determined tomorrow evening, and MD1 is on Monday (the 22nd). Good luck to everyone left, and to everyone going on in the Cup of Harmony!

All this info is now available in the RP thread OP!

[Sarzonia]

Any idea when the official post-qualifying ranks will be published?

[Twicetagram and JYPe]

Any idea when the official post-qualifying ranks will be published?

Heard it'll be out during/in the end of this weekend.

[Mriin]

And venue information for the Mrii side of the draw (Groups E-H) is now available! Thank you for your patience. If you want elaboration on any element of the areas, Mrii culture, or anything else that piques your interest, feel free to TG me or message me on discord.

[Kelssek]

A note for Cup of Harmony participants that the group draw is now up. The top two of each group and best 8 third-place teams will advance to round of 32.

[Alasdair I Frosticus]

I'm currently facing some RL difficulties in Egypt; I'll try and catch up with RPs tomorrow, but my apologies if I struggle during the finals.

I would prefer not to; this is the most fun I've had in a WC since my fluffy bunnies - but, as you all know, we live in interesting times.


In happier news, for those of you who know that I've been trapped in Egypt and self-isolating as much as feasible the last three months due to my underlying health condition... It looks like I'll get to go home for two weeks in early July; inshallah.

[HUElavia]

I'm currently facing some RL difficulties in Egypt; I'll try and catch up with RPs tomorrow, but my apologies if I struggle during the finals.

I would prefer not to; this is the most fun I've had in a WC since my fluffy bunnies - but, as you all know, we live in interesting times.


In happier news, for those of you who know that I've been trapped in Egypt and self-isolating as much as feasible the last three months due to my underlying health condition... It looks like I'll get to go home for two weeks in early July; inshallah.

No worries THE, do what you gotta do to stay safe and not catch the virus (I can relate since I also have my own health issues). Hope you can get home ASAP and be with those closest to you. Stay safe and well.

[The Sarian]

Everyone's going to hate this idea, but I'll float it anyway. There was a suggestion in the original discussion about getting rid of regionals. I gather not many people liked that, but I suggest only holding them every other cycle, alternating with the DBC. This would take one football tournament off of the rotation each cycle, but allow both tournaments to continue to run in a more sustainable way. It would mean we could more easily facilitate less time between each World Cup, and might help reduce football-related writing burnout.

[Zwangzug]

Everyone's going to hate this idea, but I'll float it anyway. There was a suggestion in the original discussion about getting rid of regionals. I gather not many people liked that, but I suggest only holding them every other cycle, alternating with the DBC. This would take one football tournament off of the rotation each cycle, but allow both tournaments to continue to run in a more sustainable way. It would mean we could more easily facilitate less time between each World Cup, and might help reduce football-related writing burnout.

A caveat I have with this idea is that the DBC is usually run with a fixed capacity (32 or 40 teams?) so I can imagine people who wanted to enter it instead of the regionals being frustrated at the size limitations. I'm not personally in that boat, but something to bear in mind.

[Delaclava]

Everyone's going to hate this idea, but I'll float it anyway. There was a suggestion in the original discussion about getting rid of regionals. I gather not many people liked that, but I suggest only holding them every other cycle, alternating with the DBC. This would take one football tournament off of the rotation each cycle, but allow both tournaments to continue to run in a more sustainable way. It would mean we could more easily facilitate less time between each World Cup, and might help reduce football-related writing burnout.

But what's the jurisdiction of the entire WCC community to do this? While the regionals are an important part of many teams' history and RP, they're not WCC-affiliated tournaments, and regions don't affect KPB or qualification. It's the prerogative of each region to decide if and when they hold their competitions. If, for example, Rushmore decides they want to stop the Copa Rushmori or hold it less frequently, Esportiva should still be allowed to hold the CE more frequently if they wish. The WCC schedule will be go by the community consensus; let each region decide how they want to fit into that.

[Free Republics]

I don't think "reducing the number of competitions" is a good idea to address the problem of people losing interest in RPing (or forgetting what they were RPing) due to long stretches without tournaments.

Ultimately, its up to the organizers of various tournaments to decide how frequently they run and I don't expect the general norm of "run the event once per World Cup cycle" to change (though I'd be fine with a tournament's president deciding to run it 4 times a year, ignoring the World Cup schedule).

[Jeckland]

I'm just mentioning this here for the sake of full disclosure - Zwang cut off our half of the CoH an hour earlier than was advertised in the thread. Given the cutoff time for WCQ was the same window but written correctly in the thread, I think this was likely an error in converting timezones. Whilst obviously not intentional, this meant I didn't complete an RP that I meant to do before the MD1 deadline, which with a cumulative bonus system will disadvantage me for the rest of the tournament.

Obviously there's not a lot that can be done about it now, but I'm mentioning it to try and make sure nobody else ends up in the same situation.

[Zwangzug]

I'm just mentioning this here for the sake of full disclosure - Zwang cut off our half of the CoH an hour earlier than was advertised in the thread. Given the cutoff time for WCQ was the same window but written correctly in the thread, I think this was likely an error in converting timezones. Whilst obviously not intentional, this meant I didn't complete an RP that I meant to do before the MD1 deadline, which with a cumulative bonus system will disadvantage me for the rest of the tournament.

Obviously there's not a lot that can be done about it now, but I'm mentioning it to try and make sure nobody else ends up in the same situation.

Thanks for bringing that to our attention, miscommunication between Kelssek and me setting up the OP. Going forward, my cutoffs will be around the same time as they were today.

For people in my half who didn't post an RP pre-MD1, feel free to post two and the MD0/MD1 posts will be graded separately.

[Kelssek]

I am very sorry for the error. It has now been corrected.

For reference, the time of this post is 00:23 UTC. If you're in Britain, note that you are currently an hour ahead of UTC/GMT due to the "summer" time change.

[Jeckland]

Thanks to the hosts for addressing the issue! The result I got ended up being a fun one to RP anyway. Speaking of which...

As part of my CoH RP, I have set up a twitter feed which will 'live tweet' my match against Darmen. Kick off will be at 7pm BST (a little over seven hours from this comment), but there will be tweets going up pre and post match as well. Hopefully people enjoy this idea, I had a lot of fun making it all happen!

[Barunia]

I'm just mentioning this here for the sake of full disclosure - Zwang cut off our half of the CoH an hour earlier than was advertised in the thread. Given the cutoff time for WCQ was the same window but written correctly in the thread, I think this was likely an error in converting timezones. Whilst obviously not intentional, this meant I didn't complete an RP that I meant to do before the MD1 deadline, which with a cumulative bonus system will disadvantage me for the rest of the tournament.

Obviously there's not a lot that can be done about it now, but I'm mentioning it to try and make sure nobody else ends up in the same situation.

Thanks for bringing that to our attention, miscommunication between Kelssek and me setting up the OP. Going forward, my cutoffs will be around the same time as they were today.

For people in my half who didn't post an RP pre-MD1, feel free to post two and the MD0/MD1 posts will be graded separately.

Are there results for MD1? I can't find any results in the thread.

Also, in regards to Zwangzug's cut-off time, it is an hour either side of midnight UTC. So is that cutting off on Sunday 23:00 (i.e. Monday for people ahead of UTC) or Sunday 1:00 (i.e. Saturday for those behind UTC).

[Jeckland]

Thanks for bringing that to our attention, miscommunication between Kelssek and me setting up the OP. Going forward, my cutoffs will be around the same time as they were today.

For people in my half who didn't post an RP pre-MD1, feel free to post two and the MD0/MD1 posts will be graded separately.

Are there results for MD1? I can't find any results in the thread.

The results are there, on page 4 for Zwangzug and page 5 for Kelssek. You had your bye day which is maybe why you're missing them?

[Barunia]

Are there results for MD1? I can't find any results in the thread.

The results are there, on page 4 for Zwangzug and page 5 for Kelssek. You had your bye day which is maybe why you're missing them?

Yep. exactly that . Searched my name, then thought I'd search for "scores", but that didn't show up either. Finally searched Valladares and found it. Interesting result for Val there

[Recuecn]

For my latest rp, I just wanted to say thanks to Banija for allowing me to build off his idea and even providing me with a little behind-the-scenes access to make my job easier. Also, thanks to EQS, who came up with the title 'The Financier' for me back when I first did one of these.

Graphic detail: Money and football
Fekadu, Fekadon't: Northern Moravica University's index reveals more than it lets on
Sometimes, correlations come as no surprise. It makes sense that the nations with the best football leagues in the multiverse would, on average, field the strongest national teams as well. It's similarly obvious that in these countries where the sport is so big, more money will be involved. But this raises a chicken-or-the-egg question: does the money follow the game, or the other way round? Dr. Fekadu's financial power index offers some clues, and in so doing demonstrates just how strong the connection is between a team's winstreak and its wallet.
More successful nations, in both international and domestic play, tend to be home to leagues who drop large sums to buy foreign players. Of course the Fekadu is a power index, not just a list of who spent the most, and since there's not enough data to calculate a score for every nation, the index has notable gaps. Nations such as Farfadillis and Vilita don't appear in the data set. And the index almost entirely ignores domestic transfers.
Yet a strong pocket book doesn't guarantee a strong performance. Chromatika, ranked 3rd in the Fekadu index, has only middling rank. Zwangzug's 1./, which only spent 0.6M NSD in the last 3 years, is one of the top 10 leagues in the multiverse.
Comparing pure spending numbers with IFCF ranks certainly creates the illusion that a league can buy its way to the top. Our model based purely on international purchases explains over 60% of a league's coefficient. But the fact that financial power, KPBs, and coefficient are all correlated doesn't imply that money will solve all a league's problems. Success will bring investors, whose money must be handled wisely for the cycle to continue.
[The article is accompanied by a large bubble graph showing the relationship between KPB points, IFCF coefficients, and the Fekadu Financial Power Index, and a smaller scatter chart showing the relation between a league's spending and its IFCF coefficient.]

[Blouman Empire]

So I just made a post, and I have the bye next match day. Does that post count towards MD4 or MD5? Can I put in another post after MD4 is posted and both posts are added to my cumulative score or only one?