Nationstates Olympic Games Discussion Thread

[Gregoryisgodistan]

On the topic of two hosts, there is a RL precedent in Melbourne 1956 games, where the equestrian events were held in Helsinki, Finland. I think something like that could work, with both hosts hosting IC as well as OOC. But I agree with Liv that too many hosts would be a problem, especially in regards to RP grading consistency.

It was Stockholm, not Helsinki, but I do agree there's RL precedent. However, both hosts should be experienced. Orlana is not qualified to host, even as a co-host. Stockholm already hosted an Olympics itself. It wasn't Melbourne and Ulaanbaatar.

[Barunia]

On the topic of two hosts, there is a RL precedent in Melbourne 1956 games, where the equestrian events were held in Helsinki, Finland. I think something like that could work, with both hosts hosting IC as well as OOC. But I agree with Liv that too many hosts would be a problem, especially in regards to RP grading consistency.

It was Stockholm, not Helsinki, but I do agree there's RL precedent. However, both hosts should be experienced. Orlana is not qualified to host, even as a co-host. Stockholm already hosted an Olympics itself. It wasn't Melbourne and Ulaanbaatar.[/]

Indeed, please do not take my post to suggest I was advocating Orlana's position. I agree that both hosts would need to be experienced, and it would be up to them how to split the burden. I would say the more work, the more experience, so a junior-senior partnership could work if the senior host was to take the lion's share. Junior in this case not meaning inexperienced, just less experienced than the senior.

[Electrum]

Moving on, shouldn't Rugby Sevens and Golf be put on in the expanded list in the time being, now that they have been confirmed for Rio?

[Liventia]

Moving on, shouldn't Rugby Sevens and Golf be put on in the expanded list in the time being, now that they have been confirmed for Rio?

Yes, I'll get around to it at some point, although I don't think that's particularly a priority at the moment when we don't even have a (realistic) prospective host.

[Saugeais]

Moving on, shouldn't Rugby Sevens and Golf be put on in the expanded list in the time being, now that they have been confirmed for Rio?

They can be put on the expanded list as provisional games, but shouldn't be official events until 2016 (11th NS Summer Games), if we are to follow standard protocol with how it was during the Winter Games' additions.

Until then, one could run them as demonstration events.

[Saintland]

http://forum.nationstates.net/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=296187 <--- This is a cool event...

Can someone answer me a question? I'm new and I'm just confused.. Why are the most active topics OOC discussion threads? Nobody wants to host anything? Do the handful of events that are active right now really take up that much time just rping and responding? No offense meant.... People would rather debate the Olympic thread than sign up for something like the Memorial Games? I don't get it...

Okay, that was more than one question...

I understand scorinators are complicated. I don't have excel on this thing, so I couldn't get it to work properly. But come on... If everyone is so experienced, lets get some more tournaments going... Everything doesn't have to be a huge dramatic production...

I'm not expecting much in the way of RP in those Games, actually. Multi-sport events that aren't the Olympics don't tend to draw much RP.

Normally, we'd be in the middle of the BoF group stage right now, but we had a delay in the opening of the World Cup Signup Thread, caused by a lack of bids (and we still don't have a World Cup bid). The regional association football tournaments have all wrapped up, as have the Rugby World Cup, the World Bowl and the IBC. The WCoH and WBC are in the playoffs (and both are probably behind schedule). The DBC is way behind schedule this time around. NSCF isn't around at the moment because the conference scorinators have proven unreliable in the past (and Osarius doesn't have the time to run it and nobody's elected to take over as commissioner). In recent months, many of the most experienced RPers and hosts have left while others (myself included) have reduced our activity levels.

Returning to the subject of this year's Summer Olympics, after thinking it through, I have decided that I won't be bidding for it. A co-hosted bid is probably the best way to go (given the issues with the EAF, with past college sports events and with 3rd party scorinators at the last IBC, the idea I proposed a few days ago is unproven and would be extremely risky, even with the measures I proposed to address those issues) and both hosts definitely need to be highly experienced. I'd imagine that we will see a repeat of this situation in future years. The only way to mitigate the situation, that I can think of, would be to allow hosts to run mixed events instead of separate events for male athletes and female athletes. That would be a departure from RL, but the Olympics are the only major NS Sports event where gender segregation is practiced.

[Vangaziland]

Thanks for the clarification everyone.. Sorry if I came off as rude. I was pissed for personal reasons..

But yeah I'm looking forward to the Olympic Games..

[Bears Armed]

Ah well, if it turns out that we can only find a suitable host once very four years we'd still be holding the Games as frequently as RL does...

[Czarch]

So.... couldn't we have the Summer Olympics like in September/October or something like that if interest in hosting it/availability to host it is up around then? IRL they've had Olympics in the early fall.

[Liventia]

So.... couldn't we have the Summer Olympics like in September/October or something like that if interest in hosting it/availability to host it is up around then? IRL they've had Olympics in the early fall.

Certainly a valid option – but unless we get a prospective host saying they're willing to bid to host it then, I'm going to stick to an August timeframe for now.

[The Kytler Peninsulae]

Now, immediately after Orean, I ICly announced I'd be bidding. Then, after my disastrous experience trying to host an almost-RP-free Rushmori Games whilst dealing with a broken PC (and some IRL mental health issues that the RG were frankly not helping with at all), I was convinced I'd never host the Olympics. Possibly anything. Indeed, I left NS for several months as a direct result.

However, it's pretty obvious that we're not going to get a bid from anyone else qualified at this point. And I'm now in a position with a new PC, a substantially improved personal situation (establishing a relationship that was confusingly beginning, and long-distance at that, at the time of the RG - we've now bought a house together), and a bunch of lessons learned from that baptism of fire (no reference to the tournament I invented ten years and two nations ago) - in other words, I feel I actually could host the Olympics.

If there is going to be a "scorination is at least partly split, but there is a single IC host" approach, as suggested earlier - my bid would fit that well enough, because it's already ICly split between two Kytlerian cities - three, if you count how the "can't take place in an Olympic Park" events like equestrian, sailing, and shooting are clustered approximately between the two. The bid is set up (and it wasn't planned that way, it was pure IC planning) to invite a portion of the events to be scorinated by a second party if that was seen as preferable.

I couldn't confirm dates at this point: August 8-24 could work, October 3-19 could work, and depending on work commitments something in between could work better. (But almost certainly not anything covering the third/fourth week of September - from my experience last year, I'm suspecting I'd take at least some time off work to get it done, and my work's ebb and flow has a quarterly peak late in the first month of a quarter.) What I can say is that in the right circumstances, I feel confident I could host this, or at least can say that with greater confidence than anyone else who might be willing at this point. I'm not formally bidding, not yet. But I'm open to it, and would like you to consider this as an invitation to comment.

[The Kytler Peninsulae]

Consider this a bid. I will take questions, of course. (Pre-empting one: the Olympic emblem will be neatened up in the final logo, if the bid succeeds!)

Here goes...



The IC bid

Zube and Kytler Bay City are the capital and largest city, respectively, in The Kytler Peninsulae. Neither would be likely to be able to stage the Games on their own - KBC has a population of barely a million, Zube not even that - but are less than 50km apart, and cumulatively have the venues and infrastructure to welcome the sporting multiverse.

Bay City is the historic former capital of whatever passed for this country in decades gone by, and was a notorious haven for the drugs trade across Rushmore - its sheltered location providing an ideal "gateway" to the western half of the continent, then by far the most populated, whilst tucked away in the then largely untamed east. A mixture of aboriginals and European settlers ran the trade, though with this being colonial racism and all that the aboriginals were usually doing the dirty work - it's a sad part of the country's history, but there's a legacy in pretty traditional redbrick buildings, and that part of history has very much been seen as something to move on from.

As the country gained a second large wave of migration from the collapsing Vircais - led by the Vephra explorer Angufams Taklik, who discovered the area via landing in the southern port city of Alaer - substantial opportunity and unrest stemmed from the discovery of major uranium reserves. There was something approaching civil war, but no real clarity as to whom was fighting for what, other than some vague notion of who ran the country. Eventually, agreement was reached at Jamison Farmhouse outside the village of Zube, incorporating the unification of two blocks of land that had almost been separated due to large-scale flooding from rice production into one country, The Kytler Peninsulae. In deference to the symbolism of this new beginning, a purpose-built capital was built close to the farmhouse - and it took the name from the neighbouring village. Zube would be the symbol of a new Kytlerian nation.

It certainly looks different from historic redbrick Bay City. Every road is light grey, every roof a light colour or glass; the nickname "Snowflake City" has been coined in recognition of the city's aerial appearance. The city is planned, largely but not entirely on a grid system, with 25 distinct neighbourhoods plus a central administrative district - major roads following the neighbourhood boundaries. And a huge park on the edge of the city provides the heart of this Olympic bid.

The Kytler Peninsulae in its modern form is a nation of around 21 million people, including around 1.3 million in the colony of Bitternea. The majority of the population do not live on the peninsulae at all, but on the now-extended "Eastern Corridor" incorporating Bay City and Zube, and additional land to their east formerly belonging to Albundania. Politically, it leans softly libertarian; this may not be obvious to visitors given the extensive police presence, but this broadly reflects continuing insecurity following the nation's history of unrest, and armed police are comparatively rare. In fact, they're quite likely to be paramilitary peacekeepers; the Kytlerians are proud of their military, but they do most of their work on the home front, particularly when addressing natural disasters. Or, in this case, protecting a major event. No fly-by-night security corporations needed here.

Summer temperatures will typically be around 25-30C by day, falling to lows of around 15C by night, with moderate humidity. Rain is likely at some point in the Olympics, and may be thundery.

The events are split between the two cities, and additionally several events take place in and around Aardswood - a historic town, nowadays increasingly a commuter hub for both Zube and Bay City, located at the gateway to a hilly, chalk-soiled peninsula jutting into Kytler Bay.

Zube provides the Olympic Stadium, in the form of already-constructed Zube National Stadium - which is set to receive a major expansion in capacity from its current 56,424, probably to around 70,000 - much of it from temporary stands jutting into the iconic gaps in the middle tier, the rest from a permanent expansion of the upper tier. The Olympic flame will be placed here, per convention. Field sports will be held at the Donaldson Diamond (otherwise known as BN Field), a baseball venue that can also host other rectangular-sport events such as field hockey, and on redeveloped practice fields nearby. Several indoor sports will also take place in Zube, primarily at the Kytlerian Indoor Arena and the Jamison Expo Centre - both of which are centrally located.

Bay City will stage a large cluster of events, roughly falling into two categories - water-based or otherwise water-themed events, and combat sports. These are mostly based around a major redevelopment of the disused Carva Dock, notably incorporating an Aquatic Centre whose exterior is illuminated by 109,300 blue LEDs and a 17,000-seat beach volleyball arena that will also stage a segment of the opening and closing ceremonies. The existing breakwaters of the dock have been extended to more than 2km out to sea, creating a sheltered lake for the rowing events; most of the reclaimed land will form the Bay City Olympic Village, which in time will form a major new neighbourhood for Bay City.

Aardswood will stage events that are difficult to stage in cities - shooting, equestrian, and modern pentathlon are all here, as is BMX and mountain biking. Furthermore, the sailing regatta will take place off the coast of Aardswood, due to superior wind conditions in this part of Kytler Bay (and, as a direct result, existing infrastructure from the National Sailing Centre in Aardswood). Athletes based in Aardswood will stay at their own Olympic Village, built on the site of a former open prison.

As is convention, the association football events will take place at major stadia across the host country.

The OOC bid

The Kytler Peninsulae's user has (under various guises) co-hosted five World Cups, instigated several historic changes in scorination (the KPB rankings, style modifiers in the World Cup, ranks in lacrosse), created the Baptism of Fire, and staged several other major events.

Furthermore, he's not going into multi-sport eventing without having an idea of what in the multiverse he's let himself in for, having hosted the Second Rushmori Games. Although this was blighted by technical difficulties, and ultimately not completed, the vast majority of events were scorinated, and many lessons were learned. The conclusion he came to was that he could indeed scorinate the Olympics - if put in a much more favourable situation than he was in for the Rushmori Games. Thanks to positive RL changes and a computer that now works, that situation has arrived.

The Zube-KBC Games would run on a dilated scorination timetable. There are two possibilities:

1) Saturdays and Sundays would feature a full day of events; Mondays would be rest days; midweek days would see half-day scorinations, with morning sessions on Tuesdays and Thursdays and evening sessions on Wednesdays and Fridays. The opening ceremony would take place on a Friday, with the archery ranking round also scorinated at this point, and preliminary team sport events would be scorinated on the previous day; thereafter, the regular scorination pattern would commence, with individual events mostly following approximately the London scheduling. This would total four weeks - based on a provisional opening ceremony date of 15 August, the closing ceremony would be on 12 September with the only scorination on that day being both marathons.
2) A full day of scorination would take place each day, but the Games would be spread out to cover 22 days rather than 16, and there would also be a rest day midway through. (OOCly, this is so that the final day is on a Sunday; ICly, this would be considered a day of remembrance for the victims of the terrorist attacks during the Lasft Olympics.) Again based on a 15 August opening ceremony, the final day would be 7 September. The schedule would be planned such that the most time-intensive events would be largely kept away from weekdays (excluding the UK public holiday on 25 August).

Furthermore, the IC three-way split between locations provides a clear delineation of how to outsource scorination if required. If a secondary scorinator is to be used, they will most likely be assigned the Aardswood cluster of sports - whitewater canoeing, BMX, mountain biking, modern pentathlon, sailing, and shooting - and probably any demonstration events. To see more on this split, see the IC bid.

A handful of events from the extended list will be added: men's synchronised swimming events (duet and team), the women's 50km walk, women's heavyweight boxing, women's C1 and C2 500m sprint canoeing, and women's C1 and C2 canoe slalom. These are all gender-equalising events, and most of these are easy to scorinate.

New-style, direct-to-xkoranate signups will be the only form allowed, to reduce the administrative burden at that stage. To assist with this process for participants, a spreadsheet will be created that will automatically handle the direct-to-xkoranate formatting. This was tested at the Rushmori Games, and although I had problems in that instance, further testing should improve this process significantly.

There will be a 400-entry limit for a single delegation, and a 550-entry limit for two delegations controlled by the same user. The wording is deliberately open-ended, to cover both puppets and "Unified Teams." Skill levels will follow the now-conventional 0-100 distribution. Min-maxing will be allowed, but mildly discouraged; see the scorination section.

If the August 15 opening ceremony date is used, the signup deadline would most likely be 31 July, so all teams can be set up before I attend a 4-7 August conference and get a slight pre-Games breather. The IC threads would be set up immediately after this.

Entry limits will follow the standard pattern, with an exception in athletics: the men's and women's 10,000m will have a lower limit of one entry per delegation, but the men's and women's marathon will have an increased limit of four entries per delegation. This is to ensure the 10,000m has a realistic number of athletes on the track, with the marathon increase being a compensatory change that can be handled realistically due to the use of wide public roads.

The latest stable version of xkoranate as of August 1 will be used. Cutoff times are provisionally expected to be around 1800 UTC (1900 BST, 1400 EDT, 2000 CET).

The RP bonus will be the relative form; weighting is presently planned to be around 40%, pending some scorination tests. 20% of the RP bonus will be a "Min-Max Avoidance Bonus" (MMAB); this will be based around the standard deviation of skill modifiers. If this is at most 30, this will be maximised at 0.2; each additional point above 30 reduces the MMAB by 0.01, to a minimum of 0. For reference, a random generation of 400 numbers from 0 to 100 typically produces a standard deviation of approximately 29, and alternating 100s and 0s provides a standard deviation of just over 50. Therefore, the MMAB is not especially punitive, but serves as a deterrent for "gaming the system" with a shedload of 100s.

The remaining 0.8 points of RP bonus is set up to encourage high-quality RP, even if it is at the expense of timeliness. 25% of the bonus is allocated to the last day's RP, 50% to the average day's RP, and 25% to the best day's RP. Therefore, if you provided one really good pre-Games RP and then had to take a few days off because RL struck, you're still getting a nice chunk of residual bonus from that one RP. The awarding of bonuses each day is subjective and quality-driven, with preference given to those who think outside of the "here's what happened on day X" recap box.

[Britonisea]

Finally.

[Liventia]

Finally.

That was not a helpful post. Kindly avoid making such posts in future if you have nothing constructive to add, please.

[Czarch]

What is the main reason why MIN-MAXing is bad? I understand what it is, from reading this thread, but why does it seem to be such a big deal?

[The Kytler Peninsulae]

It can be argued to be unfair as it allows points to be distributed away from being "wasted" on virtual no-hopers and concentrated on more potential medallists. The MMAB is designed to provide a counterweight to the incentive to min-max, whilst still allowing it if someone wishes.

[Czarch]

It can be argued to be unfair as it allows points to be distributed away from being "wasted" on virtual no-hopers and concentrated on more potential medallists. The MMAB is designed to provide a counterweight to the incentive to min-max, whilst still allowing it if someone wishes.

Okay. But why is it unfair? Not every one that competes at an Olympic event has a realistic shot of winning.

[Vettrera]

It can be argued to be unfair as it allows points to be distributed away from being "wasted" on virtual no-hopers and concentrated on more potential medallists. The MMAB is designed to provide a counterweight to the incentive to min-max, whilst still allowing it if someone wishes.

Okay. But why is it unfair? Not every one that competes at an Olympic event has a realistic shot of winning.

Yes, but can you name a country where half of the delegation is gold-medal-calibur, while the rest have no skill whatsoever?

It's gaming the system in an attempt to earn medals, and basically just looks tacky, and there is seldom IC justification for it. It's unlikely that any squad would send a team full of people where half have an amazing shot at a gold medal and the rest should place close to last.To top that off, it's just kind of rude. Many times when people min-max, they do not RP constantly, therefore they can often perform well without doing any work.

I'm not really sure if my sign-up for the IX Winter Olympiad would have constituted min-maxing, though looking back there were way too many 0s and 100s for my liking (however I did use the whole range of skill points available 40s, 60s, 30s,). Nobody is saying that sending 0s and 100s is off limits, but it's unnatural, and there need to be people of all modifiers included.

I'm kinda at a loss for what to say more that will answer your question, because it is somewhat hard to explain, so I hope this suffices.

[Camerania]

Okay. But why is it unfair? Not every one that competes at an Olympic event has a realistic shot of winning.

Yes, but can you name a country where half of the delegation is gold-medal-calibur, while the rest have no skill whatsoever?

It's gaming the system in an attempt to earn medals, and basically just looks tacky, and there is seldom IC justification for it. It's unlikely that any squad would send a team full of people where half have an amazing shot at a gold medal and the rest should place close to last.To top that off, it's just kind of rude. Many times when people min-max, they do not RP constantly, therefore they can often perform well without doing any work.

I'm not really sure if my sign-up for the IX Winter Olympiad would have constituted min-maxing, though looking back there were way too many 0s and 100s for my liking (however I did use the whole range of skill points available 40s, 60s, 30s,). Nobody is saying that sending 0s and 100s is off limits, but it's unnatural, and there need to be people of all modifiers included.

I'm kinda at a loss for what to say more that will answer your question, because it is somewhat hard to explain, so I hope this suffices.

This is why. Like Vetterra said, you've gotta think of it from an IC perspective. If you were a nation sending a large, legitimate team to the Olympics, you definitely wouldn't send people who had absolutely no skill in a sport, who is in the same delegation with people who are as good as can be at a sport. For instance, how do you explain in character sending an average person for and Equestrian event who doesn't know how to ride a horse, or someone who doesn't know how to swim for a swimming event?

[Czarch]

I think I get it now. Thanks.

[Vettrera]

No problem!

[Saugeais]

Don't think of 0 as "no skill." If they are going to the Olympics, chances are they have skill. Think if it ICly as "passable" but better than everyone else that tried out for the delegation. That's how I've always viewed it.

[Vettrera]

Oh yeah, I meant to differentiate between "no skill" and "relative skill"

[The Kytler Peninsulae]

I believe the range of xkoranate results for most Olympic events is based on the RL distribution of times in these events (mostly from Beijing, IIRC), so I think a 0 can be considered as

Of course, it must be emphasised that Margaret has a huge say in this, even before we take into account RP bonus. The two combined have allowed people to win medals with low-skill entries - I got a judo bronze medal from a guy with a mid-20s skill in Orean, there were a couple there who did even more with even less skill points. I just did a series of quick test scorinations of the men's 100m heats with four max-skill entrants, four zero-skill entrants, and one falling precisely in the middle - and although one of the max-skill guys won every time, the range of zero-skill entrants' performances was pretty huge, and the 50-skill guy finished everywhere but first in various runs.

Glad to see min-maxing bought up - any other questions on my bid?

[Bears Armed]

This is why. Like Vetterra said, you've gotta think of it from an IC perspective. If you were a nation sending a large, legitimate team to the Olympics, you definitely wouldn't send people who had absolutely no skill in a sport, who is in the same delegation with people who are as good as can be at a sport. For instance, how do you explain in character sending an average person for and Equestrian event who doesn't know how to ride a horse, or someone who doesn't know how to swim for a swimming event?

But then IC there'd be no "cap" on total ability, and so if you had enough suitable candidates available then you could theoretically send a team all of whose members would count as top-rank under this system...
And by a lot of people's reckoning (going by previous discussions of this topic), a '0.00' rating for an Olympic entrant doesn''t mean "an average person for and Equestrian event who doesn't know how to ride a horse, or someone who doesn't know how to swim for a swimming event" it simply means somebody who's around the basic qualifying threshold for entry into the Olympics in their sport... which usually would still be better than most non-entrants from the same nation.