Ideas for the Future of Vapourbots

[alex_holt]

As Kody quite fairly pointed out at the end of his tournament, I think it's safe to say that this section of the site has seen better days, although what I'm mainly creating this for is to suggest a couple of things to perhaps get things back on track. If people aren't keen on this fair enough, but I may as well throw these out there, and if anyone else has any other ideas or thoughts feel free to add them.

1) Tournament Density
I think one of the problems at the minute is that the density of the tournaments isn't really working, there are spots when there is nothing at all, and spots when several things are going on at once

How about the idea of arranging a "Tournament Season" where we have a queue of tournament writers so that there is always one tournament going. Could even integrate some season stats in there if there was interest in that sort of thing. This also means that no one person is constantly rushed off their feet and if they are particularly busy by the time a tournament slot comes round they can always negotiate to switch it.

2) Reservation Issues
Arguably a bigger problem is currently I think because of reservation, the lead in time is waaayy too big for tournaments, it's no fun for anyone if a tournament is filled but the stats don't come in for ages, holding the entire proceedings up, in which time the other competitors forget about the tournament, and the writer looses any momentum.

Instead of having set tournament sizes, the writer sets the submission deadline (preferably under, say, 2 weeks) and number of entries per person and then when all entries are in create the tourney structure around that number. No reservations allowed, you submit stats on entry or you aren't in, full stop.

3) Tournament Size
This is kind of related to the previous one one, but I think setting huge tournaments that take months to fill up then months to finish is problematic, the previous suggestion fixes some of that, but I definitely think that there is not really any reason to have more than 4 bots/person these days.

4) On Otherweights and Other SideGames
Much as otherweights are cool, there has never really been the same interest in them as the heavies, if people want to run non-heavy tournies, I'd suggest splitting them off and running them in their personal downtime while it's someone else's tournament on the main season roster, so as not to loose momentum on the heavies.

5) Ghost Writing
There has been a bit of this before, but I'd suggest that if someone is struggling during their tournament, say, I'm half way through one and suddenly I get a big batch of commissions to do, we try to share the burden by carrying the slack for other people. This hasn't been so plausible up until now, and there is still the issue of people not writing their own fights to contend with, but this would certainly help keep things up to speed.

6) Stat Location
Given that stats are all over the place now, to the point of not even being linked to in a thread, making it impossible for other competitors to look at their opponents without some serious detective work, for this I simply propose a stickied thread with just peoples names and a link to where they keep their vapours.

7) Tactics
Honestly, I don't think its worth pestering people for them if they don't present them outright, but having said that, I do propose that as an addition to extant stats, and I think I've talked about this before, we should include a "Standard Tactics" heading, which at the very least should cover the big 3 of spinner, flipper, rammer, and more if people can be bothered.

Any thoughts?

[Max]

I agree particularly with the tournament size thing, I have previously tried to get into vapour bots but each time the tournament never starts as they don't fill up or took so long to fill up that the entrants had lost interest and simply left! If you want people interested tournaments must be finished quickly not be massive and never take place. Just my opinion as an outsider.

[steven_mcg]

I think this particular thread has been a long time coming. Thanks for getting the discussion going, Alex.

In all honesty, I think the number one reason for all the unwritten fights, cancelled tournaments and general lack of activity around these parts the last couple of years is relatively straightforward. It isn't really to do with the running of the tournaments themselves, although you do raise good points about reservations and sizes. I think we all know how much we have to bug each other for tactics these days as well. :P

For me, though, the biggest problem with the Fan Fic forum these days can be summed up in one word.

Stagnation.

Robot Wars itself has been off the air now for nearly 10 years. While robotic combat stuff has been steadily making the rounds in live events and such, it's pretty much dropped off the pop culture radar altogether since Channel 5 cancelled the show. The closest thing we have to exposure in the public eye right now is SyFy's Robot Combat League, which can charitably be described as a scaled-up Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots.

There are no new bizarre and innovative robots for us to imitate and expand upon. There are no new tournament structures, Extreme events or arena designs for us to build our contests around. Most importantly, there are fewer and fewer new people joining the forum and contributing their own unique perspectives on writing and robot design.

Then there's the problems of Real Life. I know I've found it hard to get in the mood to write most anything these past couple of years thanks to my struggles to find a decent steady job, both here and on my other forums, and I know the rest of you guys have your own distractions and duties to be going on with. We're all around that age now when work and family and take precedence over our little fantasy leagues, and that's OK. It happens to us all.

As a result, many of us have moved on to do other things (even trying to build our bots for real!) and hardly any new blood has come to take their places, leaving we few that remain to keep replaying the same tournaments with the same robots over and over. There are no more worlds to conquer, no more mountains to climb.

Now, I'll be the first to admit that I'm as guilty of letting this place slide into inactivity as anyone else. There's no excuse for a tournament with only ten robots and ten fights to go over three years without being completed and I want to apologise again to those contestants who still frequent the forum. It's not as if I haven't had the time to get it done.

I still don't want to shut up shop though, despite how long it's been taking me. I don't care if it takes me till I'm 42 and the only bugger left here - I will finish that ruddy tournament some day, you see if I don't! XP

So yeah, long story short, I think the key to really injecting some life back into this place is a good-sized influx of fresh talent. How we get that fresh talent, however, is another debate in and of itself. Next year is the 10th anniversary of the death of Robot Wars. Perhaps some big fancy retrospectives on the show passed around via Facebook and Twitter or whatevs might help boost some numbers, maybe even starting up some discussion on other forums we frequent to rekindle some nostalgia for the old dear with our friends.

A more 'back-to-basics' approach with some of our contests might help open things up to newcomers as well. I know I greatly enjoyed writing that EXP League a long while back. If enough of us were interested in another PAC-style tourney like that, I wouldn't mind starting up one of those again sometime.

...

Yeah, I think I'm finally out of breath. Those who made it through the whole post, give yourselves a medal. That's the most I've written on these boards in God knows when. XD

Thanks again for starting for starting this thread, Alex. It's been good just to even talk about these sort of things again.

[majinb]

good reads, good reads...

I feel like making a big-ass post too but dont yet know what will be in it... good to see people thinking about this... gave me a new surge of optimism.

[alex_holt]

I think the stagnation is the core problem here but it's the one that's hardest to do anything about... The best I can come up with would be doing events which focused on a particular theme and getting people to design to that brief rather than just plumping in the same bots in over and over again (which I'm as guilty of as anyone). Quick turnover tournaments but ones that try to get the creative juices flowing a little? Just one bot a person and whatever tournament structure is needed to get the number entries' I get to work?

If there's any interest I'll open one up now with everyone having until I get back from my Japan holiday (15th July) to design something? As soon as entries close for that tournament I could open up submissions for the next round, although if someone wanted to alternate seasons with me would probably help the pacing?