Farfadillis/Mertagne BoF 78 Bid

[Mertagne]

A STARS AND STRIPES ENDEAVOUR
FARFADILLIS AND MERTAGNE BID TO HOST THE 78th BAPTISM OF FIRE

FORMAT:
We currently have 24 signups, which seems like a fantastic number. 24-28 appears to be the range that we're currently anticipating.

Six groups of 4 nations will play in a single round robin, before the top two teams from each group and the four best third place finishers advance to a round of sixteen, with single elimination proceeding from there. In the event of 28 sign-ups an analogous format would be employed. Tiebreakers, in order, will be: points, goal difference, head-to-head result, then an IC coin flip (OOC scorinated game). Tiebreakers will be applied until one nation is eliminated, then will be reapplied (starting from the beginning) as needed until all ties are broken.

RP BONUS AND SCORINATION:
Scorination will be performed in xkoranate using the NSFS formula, with additive style mods. One matchday will be scorinated every 48h. A generous roster bonus will be provided, which will be worth up to 2 matchdays’ worth of RP bonus.

Cutoffs might be varied, as the users behind these two nations live in different parts of the world. Cutoffs for Mertagne will be between 16:00-22:00 UTC (with a time within a one-hour window to be defined), and cutoffs for Farfadillis will be between 21:00-03:00 UTC (again, with a time within a one-hour window to be defined). With some luck cut-offs will happen at roughly the same time for both halves, but this can’t be guaranteed.

IC INFORMATION:
Farfadillis is one of the best nations in Atlantian Oceania, if your metrics for ‘best’ include millisieverts per km² or maggots consumed per capita.

Mertagne is one of the most hospitable nations that sits on Lake Bekk in Anaia, if your metrics for ‘hospitable’ include trailer parks per capita, or the presence of acid-spitting crocodiles.

Both nations (with only one exception) have fully fledged football infrastructure that is sure to be a joy to visiting nations for their first taste of WCC football. Full IC information, including stadiums, will be provided in the tournament thread.

EXPERIENCE:
Farfadillis is an established tournament host with a long-ish repertoire of hosting tournaments, including World Cup 85 as well as Baptisms of Fire 54 and 68. The user behind Mertagne, as The Inevitable Syndicate, co-hosted World Cup 66 and hosted AOCAF 41. While that was pushing a Nepharan decade ago, it’s likely that with such an experienced-ish co-host, the rust will be gone before anyone notices.

Expect a wry sense of humour and the type of professionalism that you’ve come to expect from the FFFF and the FMF. We give six Fs about this one.

[PotatoFarmers]

With Farfadillis looking to bid for both the WC and the BoF, will there be any help for new nations in terms of transiting from the BoF to the WCQ?

[Sarzonia]

This one's directed to Farfadillis:

Why are you bidding for BOTH the Baptism of Fire AND the World Cup?

Either one on its own is a significant undertaking, even if the Baptism of Fire Cup is dwarfed by the World Cup in terms of demands on your time and the effort involved in running it.

[Farfadillis]

With Farfadillis looking to bid for both the WC and the BoF, will there be any help for new nations in terms of transiting from the BoF to the WCQ?

Sorry, Poaf, but I'm gonna have to ask you to be more specific with your question. As it stands, I'm not really sure what you're asking. What kind of thing do you have in mind?

This one's directed to Farfadillis:

Why are you bidding for BOTH the Baptism of Fire AND the World Cup?

Either one on its own is a significant undertaking, even if the Baptism of Fire Cup is dwarfed by the World Cup in terms of demands on your time and the effort involved in running it.

I find it fun (especially the BoF!) and I have enough free time for hosting for the first time in a long while, as I graduated a few days ago. I know it is a significant undertaking, as I have hosted the BoF twice and the WC once. The World Cup I hosted turned out to be the biggest ever, so I have an upper bound on how tough it can get, and I am fully confident I can handle both the BoF and the WC at this point in time.

In addition to these reasons, which would've been enough to bid by themselves, I have also in the past stated that if no bids seemed to be on the horizon for the BoF with the bid deadline approaching, I'd throw in a bid to prevent the cycle from grinding to a halt, so long as I was sure that I could handle the workload. We are precisely in this scenario, with the original deadline having passed (without me noticing there was even a deadline to begin with, to be perfectly honest) without any bids.

[PotatoFarmers]

With Farfadillis looking to bid for both the WC and the BoF, will there be any help for new nations in terms of transiting from the BoF to the WCQ?

Sorry, Poaf, but I'm gonna have to ask you to be more specific with your question. As it stands, I'm not really sure what you're asking. What kind of thing do you have in mind?

I was thinking more about the user experience for new users between the BoF and the WCQ. Some of the issues would possibly include: the gap in the time between the end of the BoF and the start of the WCQ; a lack of telegrams/reminders telling BoF participants that they can continue their RPs in the WCQ thread(s); and also, some RP guidelines/feedback during the BoF that could assist them to RP the WCQ better. Basically, the question is, will having the same host for both the WCQ & the BoF help in resolving some of these issues as mentioned above?

[Farfadillis]

Sorry, Poaf, but I'm gonna have to ask you to be more specific with your question. As it stands, I'm not really sure what you're asking. What kind of thing do you have in mind?

I was thinking more about the user experience for new users between the BoF and the WCQ. Some of the issues would possibly include: the gap in the time between the end of the BoF and the start of the WCQ; a lack of telegrams/reminders telling BoF participants that they can continue their RPs in the WCQ thread(s); and also, some RP guidelines/feedback during the BoF that could assist them to RP the WCQ better. Basically, the question is, will having the same host for both the WCQ & the BoF help in resolving some of these issues as mentioned above?

Obviously, me (potentially) hosting both the BoF and the WC would result in better coordination as far as the cycle's schedule is concerned. However, I have not talked this out with the other potential WC hosts so I can't really tell you what exactly that coordination would aim for/entail (eg would we go for a shorter or longer gap between the BoF and the WC? I can't answer that right now). As for the other things: I do plan to make the BoF more interactive than I would make, say, an AOCAF Cup, but I'm not sure my hosting the WC would affect that at all, and the same goes for reminding users about things via TGs.

[Sarzonia]

I find it fun (especially the BoF!) and I have enough free time for hosting for the first time in a long while, as I graduated a few days ago.

I've been rather remiss, but congratulations! I'm sure that's a huge load off your mind!

[Independent Athletes from Quebec]

I like this bid. Tiebreakers make sense, cohosts have experience and reliability and whatnot. There is interconnectivity between BoF and WCQ that certainly translate well for both bids.

Just one question: In past competitions hosted by Farfadillis, there would be mysterious incidents/accidents/whoopsie daisies that would either cause delays to the game's kickoff or cause it to stop midway? As someone who's a huge fan of those and have even adopted them in past tournaments (though no longer done so these days, mostly out of sanity-related reasons ), will we see them return for this BoF? Especially since it would fit well with 'type of professionalism that you’ve come to expect from the FFFF and the FMF'.

[Farfadillis]

I find it fun (especially the BoF!) and I have enough free time for hosting for the first time in a long while, as I graduated a few days ago.

I've been rather remiss, but congratulations! I'm sure that's a huge load off your mind!

Thank you! And yes, it is!

In past competitions hosted by Farfadillis, there would be mysterious incidents/accidents/whoopsie daisies that would either cause delays to the game's kickoff or cause it to stop midway? As someone who's a huge fan of those and have even adopted them in past tournaments (though no longer done so these days, mostly out of sanity-related reasons ), will we see them return for this BoF? Especially since it would fit well with 'type of professionalism that you’ve come to expect from the FFFF and the FMF'.

After talking this over with Mertagne: it is likely we'll try to do something like what you're describing, though with heavy emphasis on the fact that users are free to entirely ignore the zany situations they might get put in. The one caveat is that these prompts-of-sorts are hard to come up with and would be entirely reliant on our creativity, which could run low on any given day. Hopefully our brains cooperate.

[Independent Athletes from Quebec]

In past competitions hosted by Farfadillis, there would be mysterious incidents/accidents/whoopsie daisies that would either cause delays to the game's kickoff or cause it to stop midway? As someone who's a huge fan of those and have even adopted them in past tournaments (though no longer done so these days, mostly out of sanity-related reasons ), will we see them return for this BoF? Especially since it would fit well with 'type of professionalism that you’ve come to expect from the FFFF and the FMF'.

After talking this out with Mertagne: it is likely we'll try to do something like what you're describing, though with heavy emphasis on the fact that users are free to entirely ignore the zany situations they might get put in. The one caveat is that these prompts-of-sorts are hard to come up with and would be entirely reliant on our creativity, which could run low on any given day. Hopefully our brains cooperate.

Awesome, thank you. I understand that it can get tricky with inspiration at times, so please understand that it's more of a suggestion with a slight throwback to few years ago when there used to be a bit more of funsies.