Policy suggestion: notification before getting dropped

thedarkness · Joined: 13 Jul 2006 Posts: 488

In today's trial, for the first time in the 4~ years I've been here, I was dropped from a tournament. A trial, in fact. The reason was that neither me nor my opponent noticed timers.

My issue however was not quite related to that. My issue with the dropping was how we were notified, or rather, not notified, before we were dropped.

Linkman posted a warning that we would be dropped in #magic-league, but as I see it, this is a futile practice. In explanation, here's a simple scenario:

You are in a tournament. Timers go off, neither player notices for whatever reason (not relevent).

Now, is it reasonable to expect that, with them having missed the server timers (which make a dinging noise on mIRC, at least most of the time. They didn't for me this time around), that they would notice a silent warning that, once it is off the screen, is not noticeable unless you happen to be looking for it?

I understand that both players are supposed to keep track of the time left in the match, however this is only slightly relevant. It's relevant in the sense that midway through game 2, our game errored, and we had to close the game window and restart the program for game 3. Now, I don't know about other people, but I keep track of timers by the in-game total-elapsed-time timer. I keep track of a lot of things using that timer. However, I didn't realize that it had reset, and didn't know that we had been dropped until my opponent said "wtf, we were dropped from the trial." I switched over to mIRC, tabbed to #magic-league, and saw round 3 pairings going up. I scrolled up and saw, amidst the flood of chat, a 3-4 line warning that we had 3 minutes before we would be dropped.

Again, my issue isn't that we were dropped. My issue is that the way in which a player is notified that they WILL be dropped is, quoth niknight, "up to the TC's discretion." This to me seems to be a flaw in the system. If there isn't a specific way to notify players in place, the players have no way to know what to look for. Further, had I been pm'd a notification of time (automatic timers aren't too hard to set for that, but I digress..), or (and this is my policy suggestion) had I been pm'd that I was going to be dropped in X amount of time, my mIRC would have blinked orange. This feature isn't blocked by my music, and continues until I check the pm that generates it.

I would like to suggest that before dropping a player from a tournament, or at least a trial or master, the TC should *PM* the players at risk. This way, at least the players using mIRC (I don't know how the Java client operates on notifications) have a good chance of noticing the warning, AND IF THEY DON'T, they will have a traceable message, with timestamps, saying what the issue is.

I believe that this would be easy to implement, since only judges really need to know it, though obviously as a policy change there should probably be an announcement. If an administrator were just to post a notice to that effect, or a link to the announcement, in the topic of #judges4you, and include it in the judge training system, I don't foresee and future issues.

KeySam · Joined: 14 Oct 2005 Posts: 539

everytime i got dropped i got a pm(i usualy have all sound turned off). The thing is why dont you just look at the time of your windows instead of the ingame timer?

Delicious · Joined: 08 Jun 2007 Posts: 462

just pay attention, it isn't hard

Acid_Christ · Joined: 28 Aug 2004 Posts: 502

NahHolmes · Joined: 13 Jan 2005 Posts: 588

MWS keeps track of time since the round started, you figure out the rest.

gypsy · Joined: 15 Jun 2007 Posts: 865

dont blame the judge because you werent paying attention whos fault is this.

nico · Administrator Joined: 28 Oct 2003 Posts: 823

mws keeps track of the time since the game started, wich may be up to 9 minutes and 59 seconds after the timers on irc start.

Greetz Nico

gypsy · Joined: 15 Jun 2007 Posts: 865

if you read his post he said they had to reconect which retarted the timers, but its still his fault for not paying attention its not the jduges fault

NahHolmes · Joined: 13 Jan 2005 Posts: 588

gypsy · Joined: 15 Jun 2007 Posts: 865

i said it was his fault i was just making a point.

Poopsack2 · Joined: 26 Sep 2004 Posts: 20

that is nothing, what should be changes is the policy where in g3 time is called and the player who wins g1 wins the match. This makes no sense as the game isn't even side boarded. It makes much more sense to have the player who won the 2nd game be the winner of the match

Avata · Joined: 03 Dec 2006 Posts: 372

To the original poster:

I can see both sides of the argument. First and foremost, however, it is a players responsibility to keep a close eye on the round timers, regardless of disconnects or anything else. That said, I always try to make personal contact with non-reporting players through a PM, and it's probably wise to do so if possible. Also, I'd like to toss in here that in the few trials I have judged, there are definitely times when there are six things going on at once and everyone is demanding your attention on issues they believe are crucial. There are definitely points as a judge where I've had to make the decision to deal with things in the most efficient way, rather than the most personal, just to keep things running smoothly.

To Poopsack: One reason the winner of game one wins the match if it's a tie is because it is easier to manipulate the game situation in game one.

Example: My opponent is playing a slow control deck, and I'm playing aggro. It may be possible to drag the game out as long as possible, and then start game two with some early direct damage to the head. I win game 2 based on life totals... and the match?

Basically, having the winner of a tie being decided on game one, encourages people to concede games they know they are going to lose, so they have time to play both remaining games of the match. Basing the winner on game two encourages slow play, so there's more opportunity to squeeze out a "cheap win" by edging ahead in life totals in game 2. The only way to solve this is a needlessly wordy and unnecessarily complex rule stating that the winner of the match is game one if game two was not complete, but game 2 if both games were complete but the third game was not started. Yuck.

CMA-Flippi · Posted: Wed Feb 13, 2008 6:30 pm Post subject:

and more important:
Winner of game 1 won that match without the need to sideboard and without the need to decide to draw/play.

thedarkness · Joined: 13 Jul 2006 Posts: 488

It seems that almost everybody who replied missed the point completely.

I ADMITTED THAT IT WAS MY FAULT IN THE POST.

That was totally irrelevant.

Acid_Christ: if you paid attention to the post, you'd know that I was saying that the REASON WHY neither player noticed timers was irrelevant.

Can we get back on topic please?

gypsy · Joined: 15 Jun 2007 Posts: 865

just pay attention and you wont be dropped its not irrelevant why you missed timers you missed them you werent paying attention so u were dropped. some judges pm the people others dont theres no need for a policy change.