Qt3 Multiplayer Gaming Tournament #2 - Offworld Trading Company

Welcome to the Qt3 Multiplayer Gaming Offworld Trading Company tournament! This is meant to be a low-impact, low-stress “tournament” to give those interested in participating a best-of-three series of the game each week for the four week tournament duration. Ownership of the base game of Offworld Trading Company (http://store.steampowered.com/app/271240/Offworld_Trading_Company/) is required to participate (and ownership of Jupiter’s Forge is encouraged, but not required), and participants are encouraged to join the MG Discord server (https://discord.gg/VPuc9Bf) to coordinate matches with their opponents.

Soren Johnson has offered to play the winner of the tournament, but that is optional. Participation is meant to be its own reward.

Signups are available now through Sunday, February 25 at 12:00AM GMT. The tournament bracket will be Swiss, meaning there are no eliminations and the bracket will dynamically attempt to match players to other participants with similar W/L records to attempt to provide reasonably balanced matches. Thus, the later matches should be more balanced than the first.

Games will be played once per week, with each week ending at 12:00AM GMT on Sunday of each week (i.e. the first round will end at 12:00AM GMT on Sunday, March 4). Players are responsible for scheduling their own games with their matched opponent on an honor system, completing their games prior to the deadline and properly recording their results. If a player will not be available for a given week, they can notify their opponent and forfeit the round up-front.

The winner is to email copies of the recorded games (found in My Documents\My Games\Offworld\Replays) and the game results (who won overall and what the final tally was) to [email protected] after completion. I will manually update the bracket as time allows to ensure a weekly progression of rounds. The recorded games will be compiled into a pack for distribution and posterity after the tournament is completed, in the event anyone would like to cast them.

Before a match, by mutual agreement the players may decide to use Jupiter’s Forge and/or Ceres Initiative content. A lobby’s DLC availability is determined by what DLC the hosting player has installed. The tournament default is for the host to uninstall Jupiter’s Forge and set the location to Mars (which invalidates The Ceres Initiative), which leaves only the Mars location and only the four default HQ types (Expansive, Robotic, Scavenger and Scientific). If both players agree, then Jupiter’s Forge can be left active (adding Nomadic and Elite HQ types to the random pool of four HQ types for each map) and the location can be set to Random (which will choose randomly between Mars, Ceres and Io depending on which DLC the host owns). If the players disagree as to which options should be used, the default is as previously outlined.

Whatever choice is made by the players prior to the first game should be carried to future games in the series for consistency (i.e. if the location is set to Random for the first game, it should be set to random for all games in the series).

Game Settings

Lobby Type: Friends Only
Location: Mars (see above)
Max Players: 2

Map Size: Tiny
Map Type: Random
Preset Map: Default
Map Seed: blank
Game Rules: Standard (i.e. Game Speed Normal, Resource Minimum Normal, Resource Presence Medium, Colony Class None, Latitude Type Random, Advanced Sabotage, Reveal Map, Random Prices and Stock Delay)

Masquerade and AI Players have no impact on 1v1 games but should be left off for consistency.

Both players are to set difficulty to Manager and be on separate teams.

Any cosmetic skins from the Conspicuous Consumption DLC pack must be disabled.

These are effectively the default settings for ranked 1v1 multiplayer. Players will play 2-3 consecutive matches until a player has scored two wins.

Contingency/eventuality caveats:

Friend each other on Steam. Agree amongst yourselves whether or not you will use the DLC content, then select a player to host the game accordingly. If for some reason you cannot agree, then the player listed on the player listed first in the match window on Challenge should host. Create a Friends Only game in the Game Browser for 2 players, set up the options as outlined, then invite the other player to the lobby. The other player should briefly confirm the settings are accurate prior to starting the game.

If a player needs to leave a game-in-progress early for any reason (be it intentional or unintentional, i.e. disconnect) and more than five minutes have elapsed, the opposing player may (at his/her discretion) allow a rematch at a later time. Otherwise, the player leaving early will technically be considered to have forfeit the game for the purposes of tournament continuation.

In the event of two such issues with the same player in the same round (for example, Player C miraculously loses power twice in the first five minutes of two separate match attempts), said player will also be considered to have forfeit. This, again, may be overridden at the opposing player’s discretion.

The opposing player is strongly encouraged to allow multiple rematch attempts insofar as time allows and to only invoke the above entries if absolutely necessary.

The tournament organizer reserves the right to resolve any conflicts, disputes or issues not encompassed by the rules. Be cool to one another.

These rules are not set in stone as of yet. If anyone has any concerns, please feel free to voice them sooner rather than later, but I think I’ve accounted for any issues that should affect an event of this level (i.e. not a formal, legitimately competitive tournament).

“The winner of our pickup basketball game will get facerolled by the Warriors next week.”

I’m in! Is there one DLC that is better than the other? Should I just get them all?

You at least get an achievement for playing him even if you don’t win, so there’s that.

The Ceres Initiative and Jupiter’s Forge are the two DLC that actually impact multiplayer in a meaningful way, with a heavy emphasis on the latter.

If you want some challenges to get you thinking about game mechanics, Blue Chip Ventures will do that for you.

The rest of it depends on whether or not you want to play campaign or are interested in whatever specific thing they bring to the table (actual maps of Mars, map making, the excellent Christopher Tin soundtrack, etc.).

I’m in

Signed up

I am in!

In! Now I have to actually practice. I played the game ages ago and was bad.

Same here. I did get one multiplayer game I , and my greatest achievement was simply living slightly longer than @Jason_McMaster before getting crushed by the AI

Was still fun, but lol nope. My proclivities for not taking debt early definitely hurt.

Tempting. I might sign up even though I’ll get steamrollered. How long do matches usually last?

Each match should be between 10 and 20 minutes so long as the participants aren’t completely new (i.e. have played the tutorial and a few skirmishes at a bare minimum), so each week should theoretically entail an hour of commitment at most.

Well I signed up. Although after getting rolled in the Rise of Nations tournament, I don’t know why I’m so enthusiastic to be ruined at another game I’ve not played before.

Where are the signups for the Offworld Trading Company bootcamp?

Here’s a good place to start (after the in-game tutorials, at least). The videos are technically a bit out of date, but the fundamental advice should be sound.

If anyone needs a copy of Offworld Trading, please let me know.

@tomchick will you be participating?

I’m afraid I will sit this one out. I addore Offworld Trading Company, but it would take me too much time to get my legs back under me for multiplayer.

-Tom

Boooo-urns!

Don’t forget, tonight is our weekly Comp Stomp. So, put on your CoH hats, and get ready to rumble!

I’m sure most of you are aware of this already, but there is an OTC community discord here: https://discord.gg/0pQ0rgV4DDFxO2rD

Many players there are happy to provide advice on how to play or play practice games with less experienced players. In addition, they’re holding a tournament specifically for new players this coming Satursday (Feb 10th). If you’re interested in learning a little more about the game and what mistakes to avoid, watching this could be a nice place to start. Experienced players always provide commentary for these matches, usually more geared toward helping the players themselves improve when they watch the VoD back.

It’s exciting to see another community hosting an OTC tournament, good luck with this guys!

By the way, I have an extra key for the base game that I’m willing to hand out to anyone who wants to participate (on the sole condition that you actually participate). You’d have just under three weeks to get up to speed. PM me if you’re interested.