I want to offer a few of my thoughts regarding recent discussion in the forums about megacorping, tournaments, the HHT, and time limits.Let’s start with megacorping . Or multicorping as someone once referred to in the forums. While I disliked the scale of megacorping in thus year’s World Trade Wars Championships, I don’t think a rule on megacorping should be imposed for next year’s game. This is what makes the World Trade Wars Championships unique from the other majors in that it has no rules outside of server rules. I think it should be left up to the players on whether or not they want to ally with another team. Last year, the Huns stayed in the game by picking up other teams’ castways and still ended the game with 6 players on the team at the conclusion. As soon as someone quit or dropped out, Attila always managed to find a replacement.

It is a whole new thing however, when a team of 12 merges with another team of 12 just so they can try and beat a team of 20 or it seemed like that. I hate to say this, but had the GG not won the USO with their 6 best players, I would have said they would not have deserved to win this year’s World Trade Wars Championships. But Prestone did prove he can win whether with 6 or 20 players depending on what the opposition has as well. Both the RN and GG numbered well into the dozen or so players. If every one else had 6 players, no doubt Prestone would just have needed his USO champs teammates to blow everyone else to space dust and still win anyways.

What I suggest for next year is for players to TRY and not play with more than 6-8 players to a team and be on the honor system in doing so. If they think they need more than 8-10 players to beat a team of 6, they don’t deserve to win the damn game. That is how it all started. GG enters with 12 guys. RN figures they better match them in numbers and it snowballed from there. Limit initial team entry to 6 players for next year, replace anyone dropping out with castoffs from other teams, and the game should be OK without any actual rules – the players just need to be on the honor system not to have so much players on one team or consider any victory or other accomplishments tainted if they use 10 players to wipe out a 6 player corp.

Each tournament is unique with USO being a point based game set to end in 2 months and also currently the only major that has pre announced changes in settings. The World Trade Wars Championships has no rules and is the only one with a stock ships/planets game. The BOTE is hosted by a different server each year, depending on who wins it the previous year. The host also decides in the edits so it could be stock if so chosen. The HHT is heavily edited and always is geared for bloody domination. Lotto is about random placements of players on a team.

Speaking of the HHT, Space Ghost said that he won’t reset a time limit if a player is hit with the time limit bug. A little reminder to him I had a time limit game running at Intergate when I was game op there and SG was hit with the time limit bug himself and asked me to reset the time for him – which I did because I trusted his word and I still do. Granted, it was just a small game, but I thought it was worth noting the same man that won’t reset the time limit in the HHT once asked me to do the same for him in one of my own games. I don’t think a time limit should be used period if this bug still persists.

End of rant – Timberwolf