Rogue 70 - A Cup of Harmony for WC78 Candidate Bid

[Vilita]

Cup of Harmony for World Cup 78 Host Bid

I would like to offer this opportunity to present my CoH for WC78 bid. I have previously hosted the Cup of Harmony with no co-host. I do not object to hosting with a partner should one come up but this is a solo bid. I will be using the Cup of Harmony 61 Scorination system. This is a host bid by the Tropics of Vilita who will ICly host 50% of Group Stage matches on the Vilitan Island of Turoki. The other 50% of matches will be hosted ICly in Tropicorp locations, a quasi-governmental entity tied to the Tropics of Vilita.


Hosting Experience:

Cup of Harmony XIV
AOCAF II
Baptism of Fire Cup PXVI
Colony Cup 1.1
Baptism of Fire Cup PXVII
World Cup XVII
Baptism of Fire Cup PXVII
Baptism of Fire Cup PXIX
World Cup XIX
Baptism of Fire Cup PXX
AO Hockey Championships I
Baptism of Fire Cup PXXI
Baptism of Fire Cup PXXII
World Cup XXII
Nationstates Surf Tour
Baptism of Fire Cup PXXIII
Baptism of Fire Cup PXXIV
Baptism of Fire Cup PXXV
World Cup XXXI
Cup of Harmony XXVI
Nationstates Grand Prix II
AO Hockey Championships IV
Nationstates Grand Prix III
Nationstates Grand Prix IV
Cup of Harmony XXVI
World Cup LIX
AOCAF 36 ::
Cup of Harmony LXI
Eagle's Cup V ::
AOCAF 50 ::
Eagle's Cup VI ::


Q&A
Q: Why a Solo Bid?
A: Because the deadline for host bids is in <3 hours and we do not intend to force an extension on the deadline.

Q: Is a Solo Bid even allowed?
A: Yes.

Q: Have you done it before?
A: Yes. I have twice previously solo-hosted the Cup of Harmony.

Q: As the creator of the two-party Baptism of Fire Senior Host / Junior Host system, do you no longer care about giving opportunity to Junior hosts?
A: The intent of this bid is to provide something different to vote for other than just who the the names of the nations are in the vote. While each existing bid has slight differences, they are also largely similar. This bid also has similarities, but attempts to have more than just a single difference from other bids. I am more than willing to add a supervised Junior host for the group stage of the competition.

Q: Is there something you don't like about the current bids that made you want to bid?
A: I am confident that all 3 opposing bids would be successful. However they all use mostly the same scorination philosophy and with few exceptions (A slightly varied formula in one bid, and a confusing application of RP bonus in another) were just very vanilla. I didn't want to be encouraged to vote for a bid based just on who the two nations behind the bid. So I wanted to provide a bid structure that offers some more substantial differences that voters could choose from.

Q: So whats different about this bid?
A: Lets start with whats the same:

Number of Participants:
32 Nations will be accepted. Based on initial feedback, it is unlikely the tournament will need to be expanded beyond 32 nations. However, there is the possibility that this number will grow (We have no intention of leaving out deserving nations). Regardless, the number will not shrink below 32.

If more than 32 nations are accepted but less than 40, a play-in system will be used to reduce the entries to 32.

Mimicking the format of the World Cup itself works well from a scheduling perspective and provides prospective hosts the ideal amount of training towards a future World Cup Finals host bid. I don't intend to encourage this to change.
Format:
Group Stage - 32 Teams
Knockout Stage (Single Elimination) - 16 Teams

Teams will be split into two regions of 16, with those on either side of the bracket remaining on that side of the bracket until the final. There will be a single round robin with the top 2 advancing in each group.

Q: Is that all? So what is different?

Criteria of inclusion:
As typically, the majority of the invitees will be based on Roleplay contributions to the World Cup 78 Roleplay thread. However, 5 spots will be reserved for the following:
1) A Former Cup of Harmony Champion (With the invitation going to the Most Recent CoH Champion not already qualified to the World Cup or CoH by other means)
2) A Former Baptism of Fire Cup Champion (With the invitation going to the Most Recent BoF Champion not already qualified to the World Cup or CoH by other means)
3) A Former World Cup Champion (With the invitation going to the Most Recent WC Champion not already qualified to the World Cup or CoH by other means)
4) The nation Highest in the KPB Rankings that has missed the World Cup and otherwise meets criteria for entry (Entered World Cup 78, posted at least 1 RP)
5) The nation that most narrowly missed the World Cup based on the World Cup 78 hosts tiebreaking procedure, and otherwise meets criteria for entry (Entered World Cup 78, posted at least 1 RP)

Should any of these 5 slots be unable to be filled (IE: No eligible former Baptism of Fire Champions (3) can be invited; or no nations miss the World Cup (5)) then they will be filled with an alternate user based on their eligibility and the totality of their contribution to the World Cup.

Group Stage Tie-breakers:

1) Head to Head
2) RP Bonus IC: Coin Flip
3) Goal Difference
4) Goals Scored
5) Wins
6) KpB Ranking Points

Effectively, if two nations are level on 4 points in the group stage, and they also drew their one head to head match, whichever nation had up to that point accrued the highest total RP bonus will advance. ICly this will be explained as the advancing nation having won a coin flip, with Heads being Callum Banda and Tails being a Cocoabo.

RP Bonus Grading:
-KPB Rankings will be updated prior to the start of the competition, based on performance in the WC78Q. Therefore, all nations will start afresh in their RP Bonus.
-There will be an RP Bonus for roster, then RP Bonus for each matchday (including Pre MD-1) of the competition.
-Nations will have the option of denoting their WC Roster as still applicable for the CoH, but they must do so in an RP and most also notify the host with a direct link to the roster from the WC78 Roster Thread. Rosters will be graded on completeness, detail, presence of visuals and accuracy.
-- The entire tournament will be hosted in the host country so do not post stadium info. Any roster posted in the CoH RP thread with stadium information for the posting nation will receive a low, non-zero score for quality.
-Each RP will be graded in 5 different Categories, and you can earn points in each of those categories up to the total RP - so there may be multiple paths towards a maximum bonus whether you are a skilled poet, Professional Thesis Writer or Graphic artist (for example).

RP Bonus Application in the scorinator:
-RP Bonus will degrade throughout the competition. An RP Posted prior to MD1 may be worth 10 points when MD1 is scorinated. An RP posted between MD1 and MD2 may be worth 10 points when MD2 is scorinated, while the RP previously posted before MD1 contributes up to 9 points on MD2 and will continue to degrade (8 points on Md3, 7 points in Ro16, 6 points in QF, 5 points in SF and so in) from that point. Roster bonus is counted separately and does not degrade. This is a reward for posting a roster (and thereby, a penalty for not contributing or denoting a roster - something that is critical to your opponents ability to RP your match)
-RP bonus will be applied not solely as an additive to a nations KPB Ranking points, but as a ratio-based determination of how many 'attacks' a nation will have during the scorination. For simplicities sake, with style modifiers ignored for example sake; it means that the #1 ranked nation with Max RP Bonus against an unranked nation with no RP bonus might have the opportunity to win a game 20-0 if margaret was hacked. However, if the #1 ranked nation with no RP bonus played an unranked nation with no RP Bonus, they would be able to win the same match no higher than 10-0, with the lower ranked nation having a proportionally increased number of chances in attack.

Schedule:
Voting Schedule, timely acceptance of invitations and with cooperation from the WC hosts permitting, the intent would be to scorinate each CoH matchday during the prior corresponding non-scorination day of the World Cup. IE: CoH MD2 would take place on the offday following WC MD1 and preceding WC MD2.

[Kep]

Hey dawg,
Why is RP bonus above GD? Wouldn't that be harder to tally up?
But I like the bid!
(^_^)/
- Kep

[Drawkland]

I will be using the Cup of Harmony 61 Scorination system.

-RP bonus will be applied not solely as an additive to a nations KPB Ranking points, but as a ratio-based determination of how many 'attacks' a nation will have during the scorination. For simplicities sake, with style modifiers ignored for example sake; it means that the #1 ranked nation with Max RP Bonus against an unranked nation with no RP bonus might have the opportunity to win a game 20-0 if margaret was hacked. However, if the #1 ranked nation with no RP bonus played an unranked nation with no RP Bonus, they would be able to win the same match no higher than 10-0, with the lower ranked nation having a proportionally increased number of chances in attack.

Do you have link or download for this CoH61 scorinator? I just want to try it out, nothing to do with the bid really.

[Free Republics]

I will be using the Cup of Harmony 61 Scorination system.

-RP bonus will be applied not solely as an additive to a nations KPB Ranking points, but as a ratio-based determination of how many 'attacks' a nation will have during the scorination. For simplicities sake, with style modifiers ignored for example sake; it means that the #1 ranked nation with Max RP Bonus against an unranked nation with no RP bonus might have the opportunity to win a game 20-0 if margaret was hacked. However, if the #1 ranked nation with no RP bonus played an unranked nation with no RP Bonus, they would be able to win the same match no higher than 10-0, with the lower ranked nation having a proportionally increased number of chances in attack.

Do you have link or download for this CoH61 scorinator? I just want to try it out, nothing to do with the bid really.

I'd also like to try it out, to help make up my mind before I send in my vote.

[Gregoryisgodistan]

Given users, myself included, have expressed concern about previous solo bids when there is a competing bid by multiple users, even when the solo host is clearly capable of hosting it, why not just wait until next cycle and find a co-host? I'm guessing this was a last minute idea, or you would have had more time to find a co-host than the referenced three hours, so was this a rushed decision or were you considering this all along and just decided to go through with it at the last minute? Or was there some last minute change of circumstances that enabled you to do this?

[Vilita]

Hey dawg,
Why is RP bonus above GD? Wouldn't that be harder to tally up?
But I like the bid!
(^_^)/
- Kep

By harder to tally up, do you mean from the standpoint of a participant understanding who will advance in the event of a tie? Sure, since RP bonus grades aren't typically posted live during an event they would have to make their own assessment if they want to 'suppose' who would advance. But recall, its only a tiebreaker.

With the Cup of Harmony being an event that we now look to in order to reward quality RP, I felt it would be appropriate to at least give it a shot - perhaps more important than a goals related tiebreaker where sometimes a nation with a more attack minded style has an "unfair" advantage able to win matches 5-3 instead of 1-0.

Given users, myself included, have expressed concern about previous solo bids when there is a competing bid by multiple users, even when the solo host is clearly capable of hosting it, why not just wait until next cycle and find a co-host? I'm guessing this was a last minute idea, or you would have had more time to find a co-host than the referenced three hours, so was this a rushed decision or were you considering this all along and just decided to go through with it at the last minute? Or was there some last minute change of circumstances that enabled you to do this?

I felt this was an opportune time to bid for various reasons. One of the strongest was that when reading the bids they felt very similar and very vanilla and - while some differences existed - was starting to trend towards potentially becoming a straight up poll on popularity. Moreso, however, it was noticing that while all the other prospective hosts were partnering together for the first time, each of them have been fairly active in the hosting arena in recent memory. 2 of 3 other bids include a nation that already hosted a WCC event this cycle - and the third consists of two users returning to hosting after a slight gap - but even then, both of those users (Along with 5 of the 6 total opposing bidders) have hosted multiple WCC events including the World Cup in the time that has passed since the last time I've actually hosted a WCC event which was the Cup of Harmony in the World Cup 61 cycle. Sure, I've hosted other similar, high quality events since then such as the Eagle's Cup and I am one of the most active total host-ers of all time particularly considering my time as a semi-permanent host of the Baptism of Fire Cup, but I've been wanting to get the chance to host another WCC event. So then I began to wonder if it was actually the 'so-called' less experienced - but very active recently - hosts who were hogging the hosting opportunities instead of the other way around! For some reason I had been focusing on the World Cup or the Olympics and had some opportunities to put a bid together for this past cycle but I decided to forgo the bid offers I had to allow more junior hosts to take a shot at putting a bid together at that time. But with so many bids this cycle, looking at them I realized A) there just wasn't enough to set them apart and B) There doesn't seem to be a driving need to 'step aside' for other users to enter the hosting pool considering that 5 of the 6 users in the bidding had hosted one... two... three WCC events since the last time I had and were continuing to put bid proposals together. Of course, many active junior partners were already taken in the opposing bids and I also felt it would be less fair on the process to introduce a new bid at the 11th hour from an unknown first-time bid package vice a bid package (myself) that should be well known and has been proven before.

Do you have link or download for this CoH61 scorinator? I just want to try it out, nothing to do with the bid really.

I'd also like to try it out, to help make up my mind before I send in my vote.

Of course, I will TG you shortly with a link and some minor instructions.


Naturally, I will be happy to answer any other questions / concerns folks have. If you wish to engage in a dialogue opposed to just asking a question you can also ping me at any time on irc.esper.net #nssport. I will challenge myself to remain available and responsive to pings from this moment onward until the voting results are announced.

Thanks

[Gregoryisgodistan]

Can I have a link too, Vilita?

[Vilita]

Can I have a link too, Vilita?

Depends, is it for you or Lord Gregory?

Don't want these things getting in the wrong hands...


but yea, of course