Rafka, is there no way we can play the game today, tomorrow or on friday evening?. I like going out on saturdays you know , else on sunday.

Back tell me a day and a time, I am most likely available any day, specially weekdays, more probable on tuesday and thursday, since18 gmt till 01 gmt.

That's not me, duh, shaggy, I don't wear Chile flag, I am from Argentina xD

Yesterday I talked to Thouson and he said we'd play today (1 hour ago). He didn't come yet, I am off to sleep.

LeTotalKiller, Monojonkka: you have to use 8 worms for each player in this cup

Almost played thouson today, but when he asked I was in the midd of an onl game and when I finished he was gone already too bad. Also could have played NEO but he couldn't play because he was too cold.

I wouldn't agree on something that could radically change the scheme.
More fair?, yes. But there are a few more things to consider:
-How unfair is the scheme as it is?. Hard to reach an agreement on that, specially if it is a discussion between people who play it in real depth and people who doesn't.
-Is it worthy to make it fair?. No way imho. Long time ago I was even someone who wanted to play it with manual placement, but after more games I started seeing that random placement just makes the scheme what it is. Intermediate without random placement is not intermediate.

Lots of things can be considered as luck factors. And in every single scheme if two players with the exact same style, skill level, strategy level and mood of the day it will be luck what decides who wins and who loses. Even if the placement of both players is equally good, it is probable that one of the players will be more comfortable with the placement he got than the opponent with his placement. Just a matter of styles.
How "big" is the luck factor introduced to the scheme by random placement is a variable impossible to isolate. I think that most times, what determines the result between two players with the same skill level is which one of them is better prepared for the situation he has to face and which one is playing better at that particular moment. Trust me on this: in Intermediate the "mood of the day" is a huge luck factor... bad luck if you are not in your best day.

Now if you want to complain about a luck factor in Inter that many times forces you to radically change your plans or ruins your hide: that is wind . If there only was a "next 5 winds" bar it'd be all fine, jeje.

I think that ropa isn't completely wrong. I agree that you will need walking/jumping perfection in elite more often than in Intermediate in order to save time. Still at intermediate it isn't strange to waste a chute/bungee or even a rope because you failed a jump and need to use an utility in order to reach the target in time.
Besides that when playing intermediate I think you are more often exposed to harder jumps, or at least you can go for harder jumps knowing that if you fail the first attempt  you will most likely have a second chance or third chance.
The situation is quite different when using LG. In turns that begin with it your target is usually quite far away and you will most likely be reaching it with barely enough time to do what you need to do precisely, even if you didn't miss a single jump.

Regarding Free's point of view about Intermediate deep tactics, I think you would have to study the scheme as much as you've studied Elite in order to make a valid/objective affirmation about it. I have probably spent as much (if not more) time -years- and effort -horus a day- on studying the strategy in it -screenshot the starting situation and play the whole round in my mind- and I can easily say that the depth of Intermediate strategy is as overwhelming to me as Elite tactics are to you.
Maybe it'd take someone like Mablak (recognized as one of the best in both schemes) to do such analysis, and it'd still be an opinion after all .

Way to describe it, Mablak (hats off).
I'd like to add the fact that in Intermediate you not only have the chance to put to work a lot of knowledge and many small tricks/skills, but these lesser skills are extremely important in the game. Most people tend to think "why the hell do I need to learn something I will rarely ever use?" and fail to see the fact that there are so many "things you will rarely ever use" that the addition of many of them is a "skill" (to put a name on it) that you will be using in every round. In fact this "skill" is a very important one, because it gives you the chance to plan moves that your opponent just can't see.
The number and diversity of these lesser skills is so unbelievable wide that I dare to say that through years of constantly researching I've managed to learn a lot of them. So many that I actually should have them written down somewhere because it's impossible for me to remember everything and it isn't strange to find myself in a situation knowing what trick I need, but not being able to remember exactly how to do it.
More over I am sure there are still things that nobody knows. 3 years ago some of us used to think there were no more tricks to discover and master... fools :p .

Round 2 was tied (not uploaded). Excellent performance by Ramb0 during the first 2 rounds, almost 2-0'ed me if it wasn't because one little bad luck+bad choice at the last moment forced him to tie the round.

Quote from: chakkman on February 14, 2009, 12:24 PM
if you loose 2 rounds in succession you have been playing bad .

I don't think that losing the first 2 rounds in succession (0-0-1) means you've played worse than someone who lost the last 2 rounds in succession (1-0-0).

I don't think that people who lose 2 rounds and then win 1 are worse players than people who win 1 round and then lose 2.

If I give no points to someone who lost the first two rounds and won the third, then I also wouldn't give points to someone who won the first and then lost the last 2 rounds.

It's just a suggestion and just my opinion (although I tend to be insistent when I think something could be better )

Quote from: twistah on February 13, 2009, 07:20 AM
Player A wins all others in his group, player B wins also all but player A, A and B proceed to the next stage, case eaten.

That's an easy one, but what about this:

Player A won all his games 2-1 (except a 0-2 vs C)
Player B won all his games 2-1 (except the 1-2 vs A)
Player C won all his games 2-0 (except the 1-2 vs B)
Player D lost all his games.

A, B and C won 3 games each, only 2 of them will make it to the group stage. The fairest way of modding such situation I can think of is to start counting who won more rounds (A=6, B=7, C=7). But A only played 2 rounds vs C and I have no idea what could have happened in a third round between A and C.
If the game B vs C (2-1) was C-B-B, and the game A vs C was C-C-?... Why not to find out what that "?" is?. What if that last round is played and it turns out to be a C-C-A? Does player A really deserve no credit at all for winning the third round while B gets credit for winning the first round?.

Quote from: Rioter on February 13, 2009, 06:38 PM
Also, what about if someone wins 3-0. What happens then. :/

3 round against every player of your group, 1 round won = 1 point. Therefore you get 3 points for a 3-0, 2 points for a 2-1, 1 point for a 1-2 and 0 points for a 0-3.

Quote from: MonkeyIsland on February 13, 2009, 06:22 AM
We could give points for winner 2-0 (3 points), draw 1-1 (1 point to each), and 0 for lose, like FIFA world cup maybe.

Player A = 9 points
Player B = 4 points
Player C = 4 points
Player D = 0 points

B vs C = 1-1. Who gets the second place in the group?. -> needs a tie breaker match that might bring more timekeeping problems (more headaches for moderators).
At this moment I don't see a difference between 2 rounds with the "2-0 = 3 points, 1-1 = 1 point" option and 2 rounds with the "2-0 = 2 points, 1-1 = 1 point" option.
So, no matter which one you choose, if you play an even number of rounds against the other wormers in your group (2, 4, 6, etc) this ties can happen. If the extra stage in the tournament (the tie breaker games stage) won't bring any timekeeping problems then I see it as an option as valid as playing an odd number of rounds (1, 3, 5, etc).

Quote from: Rioter on February 12, 2009, 04:43 PM
I could reword it to "first to two" then if you want it that way

That wouldn't really fix what I think is wrong here: pr gets to play 3 rounds against Unique, f4st gets to play only 2. It is easier to win 1 round if you played 3 than if you played 2, therefore pr has a small advantage over f4st.
I think it would be more fair to give f4st a third round against Unique, unless you think that 0-1-0 is really different from 0-0-1 or 1-0-0 (I don't, in all the cases that is 1 out of 3).

constructive criticism:

Unique 2-1 pr
pr won 1 round against Unique, Pr and Unique played 3 rounds

Unique 2-0 f4st
f4st won 0 rounds against Unique, f4st and Unique played 2 rounds. How do you know that f4st wouldn't have won the third round?

In group stages with "best of" games and 1 round won = 1 point, some people end up playing more rounds than other people against some opponents. And it is logical to assume that someone who plays 3 rounds against a particular player (In this case Unique) has more chances of winning at least 1 round than someone who played only 2 rounds against the same particular player.

For these 1 round won = 1 point all vs all group stages, to keep things as fair as possible I think that the correct thing is to make each player play a defined and odd number of rounds against the other players. For example: 3 rounds.

Why not 2 rounds?:
Because you could get people with the same total number of rounds won (Wormer1 wins 6 rounds in total, Wormer2 wins 6 rounds in total) and that also have won and lost the same number of rounds against each other (Wormer1 1-1 Wormer2), a perfect tie*.
With 3 rounds played, one of the players will always win more rounds than the other one, so that if 2 are tied in the total number of rounds won, the one who won more rounds in the match between them has the lead (if Wormer1 has 6 points and Wormer2 has 6 points, but the result of their match was Wormer1 2-1 Wormer2, then Wormer1 will be above Wormer2 in the tables).

*A tie breaking stage after the group stage will have more or less the same result, although it might be slower. You know, if it is a tie breaking game and the one who loses doesn't get into the play-off, there is a good chance that both players will wait until they feel they are at their best level, slowing everything down (or at least giving the mods a nice headache). In contrast, making games of 3 rounds instead of "best of 3" shouldn't make the tournament go any slower (you can't say you don't have time for 3 rounds but you have time for a "best of 3" game, since the "best of 3" might last 3 rounds .