automationgame.com

So, recently there's been a couple competitions with... Major issues.
Some of these competitions had dumb rules from the very beginning,
Some of these competitions had major rules being made after people had built and sent in cars,
Things like this make me want to slam my head against a desk repeatedly. Please, for the love of christ, if you're going to host a competition please make sure that:
1. Your rules aren't insanely restrictive

You get the idea...that may have been slightly exaggerated but you get the point

2. You're not making up rules mid way through the competition that will drastically affect how the competition will play out, especially after people have already sent in cars.
That will be all for now.
(Let the flame wars begin...)

Don't we already have a post about this?

Do we? No harm in making another.

If it were a post, I hadn't noticed, and a lot of other people hadn't, clearly!

I've seen a few competitions where I might have been interested, last one I joined was Der Bayer's BRC, I stuck around for those two rounds. But now I see one that I feel might be interesting, and then look---- And it's like "Here's a ton of regulations, make sure you comply with all of these." and then they go "Oh, and make sure your horsepower is between --- and ---" and I just wanna go, if we have to be inside a tightly nit requirement while also meeting regulations, what is the point of different engine manufacturers if the end result has to be the same?"

Kinda kills the sport.

I agree with your observation. Also most challenges lately seem to have very unclear goals and do not describe properly in the OP what the rules are or what the aim of the challenge is or what and how it is going to be scored. This causes me to rapidly lose interest. People please if you organize something think it through properly. I'm not against changing the rules in the very beginning if people find them too harsh or irrational. Please be clear about the rules and about the challenge goals and especially make sure you think things through before you start and also don't forget to finish the challenge within a reasonable amount of time as well. Do not let it die, eventhough everyone already sent their cars. Making a challenge is a commitment, which includes a lot of work.

We have a general thread on this which is stickied, but as a result can be 'hidden in plain sight'. Which means that making a topical thread about this would be relevant when there seems to be a spate of challenges that fall apart (because none of the guidelines in that lengthy post are being followed).

I actually agree, I've been also looking at all the challenges that have been going on lately. I'm going to actually be a dick and hold forth on my opinion on the named challenges I've seen. No offence to those hosts, I'm purely looking at the challenges:

The slump is at least in part due to the changes in balancing between betas and ongoing bug ironing (which is why the V6 Supercars Series rebooted, and still has plenty of good potential). SoMWoM is a good well thought out challenge too, but is dependent on the ongoing development of BROBOT (though we're also waiting for the sports car reviews!).

As for the rest-
Pro Touring Tour had a nice idea but having the rules satisfy both the agenda and users is tricky (already discussed this enough) and above all else, shifting the playing field after submissions begins is too troublesome. It's dead for now but like Kristina said, I hope it can be properly revived.
Formula One Role Play is extremely ambitious in scope and while it's still building in momentum, I still find a lot of the logistical details very vague. The vaguer and more ambitious the idea, the more worried I get that it'll turn into vapor because there's no plan on how to tackle the major things (like the tracks needing to be rebuilt when BROBOT develops further).
Group B Rally: I think "you better not pull a rileybanks" was a pertinent comment but more importantly, we still need clarification on what the hell the "offroad recommendations" mean. Are you going to make it a rule, or what? Because as far as we can tell, "recommendation" doesn't mean squat when the proposed track and premise doesn't make sense anyway.
2005 Best In Class: entertaining premise, all the data is collected as far as I can tell. We're counting on your to eventually pull through lordred!
1993 DTM: as leo said, highly restrictive materials and component rules combined with a minimum weight is a round about way of restricting the body (why not then just stipulate a minimum wheelbase?) That'd be the main turnoff.
J.E.C.B: come on, get the rest of the results released!

This leaves a total of 3 tournaments that were inexplicably abandoned in progress (more if any of the above named are also declared dead), which, all things considered, is lower than I expected.

Does my old challenge count towards the "inexplicably abandoned challenges" number? I still feel like an ass for that, it just got a bit much because I completely miscalculated everything. Also, around that time I took my first of many breaks from Automation. I'm making a new challenge soon, and I promise it will suffer from the same fate.
Also, about the Rileybanks thing, I was genuinely upset when I found out he abandoned it. At the time, that was one of the best cars I'd ever made and it all went to waste.

*cough* The Mille Cavalli thing *cough*

About the hot hatch reviews, I haven't had the combination of time and inspiration required to do them, usually I come home far too tired to be able to write or with many things that need to be done. I want to get them done eventually, it's just that things aren't working the way I wanted. About the races, they have all been done by Der Bayer, now it's a matter of waiting for them to be commented, as Pyrlix and Normanvauxhall want to.

I knew you'd mention that, which is why I'm especially being a dick when I opine on other tournaments. I absolutely insist that it isn't abandoned and I am merely having a similar issue to what you've related above

That said I do admit to having serious issues with lengthy delivery times and schedules that blow out. My track record on other things when it comes to tournaments etc. is that I always deliver, but sometimes it really does take more than a year for it to happen........... I'm not proud. I reiterate though, progress is happening, however slowly, and however irrelevant.

Coincidentally, I've been working on a tournament idea on and off for the past few weeks - would you recommend, as a general rule, that I and other tournament-designers go on the IRC channel and solicit someone to beta-read the rules before I post? Or, alternatively, post in a forum thread dedicated to planning upcoming contests? I get the sense that a lot of these complaints come out of tournaments being started by someone who didn't have any feedback before they opened for submissions.

As one of the people who regularly lurk around on the irc, I can say that we are more than happy to help people who have doubts or want tips about challenges or the game itself. So if you want to, you can give us the rules to proof-read them. I'm not sure about having a dedicated forum for that, as people might lose interest or complain about a set of unpolished rules that could otherwise be interesting.

I was imagining something more like a single thread where people would post, "Hey, I've got a draft of an Amphibious Cars challenge, would anyone be interested in beta-reading it for me? Let me know; I'll PM you." I agree - an entire forum would be a bit much.

(p.s. if such a thread existed I would subscribe to it and occasionally volunteer to comment.)

Prepare to be derailed in that thread. The day 3 ideas come up at the same time, it would be a giant clusterfuck of confusion.

To be honest. I do not think it is absolutely necessary. I never did, but I do think that people should at least have some experience with participating in challenges before they make their own. That way they have a usually good perception of what appropriate rules are for a challenge. Also I find it very important (and I cannot stress this enough) that when starting a challenge, things have been thought through and written down. I personally wrote down the intro, rules and the scoring system in a word file before I post it in the forum as a new challenge. That way you can check it a couple of times before you post. Usually I even make the scoring table and scoring weights already before the challenge, as I find it a bit unethical if one develops the scoring after the entries have been submitted. However, I guess that is just my scientific background forcing me to do things "blinded" I think.

@Tycondero: I was certainly going to do that much. One of the reasons I'm taking so long is that I want the scoring system to be well enough balanced to support a variety of competitive strategies. I have some math to do first, but after that I'll be making a pile of cars to test the numbers on.