Appeal: DT-J Week 3 - BONK! vs. Calculus Crusaders

[Vehicle]

Might as well jump on the appeal bandwagon.

Zidane played the entire basing game this week, then was subbed out for anzu during the WB game. During Javs, when I added zidane, it cost me 5* despite the fact that I had already paid for him. Effectively, I got charged twice for the same player.

This ate up literally ALL of my remaining stars. The bot would not even let me add myself even though I played the base game, and the only player who it would allow me to add was Anzu, who died out 3-10.

So my appeal is based on the grounds that a bot error kept me from fielding the best available lineup and therefore cost me the game.

[Miku19]

Hmm, I thought I saw you added at one stage.

[Zeebu]

the appeal itself is a valid one.

what is compete and utter horseshit was that the game was played at all.


bonk knew that if they won, there was no need for an appeal. bonk knew that if they lost, they could appeal.
both of these things were known before the game ever started.

i want to hear someone say a good reason as to why the game was played at all.

[Reab]

Yea really. If problems like that occur, say it, and don't play the game and appeal if you lose. Seriously.. should NOT grant that appeal.

[Miku19]

So, what's going to happen?

[Vehicle]

Ya I've been askin this question for a couple days now.

[Black Mage]

The ops have decided to APPROVE this appeal.

This was a pretty straight-forward bot malfunction. And the ops were notified before the game begun.

As to why we allowed a game to continue...would you guys rather just not play a game? Isn't this a game you play for fun?

Captains, please negotiate a time for the replay. The ops/Wingzero will need a few days notice and some time to reset the bot/database to the original * counts before the game. This would best be done at the end of a week of games (Thursday after basing or Sunday after other games).

[RednaZ]

As to why we allowed a game to continue...would you guys rather just not play a game? Isn't this a game you play for fun?

That arguement only makes sense if you inform both teams, beforehand, that the outcome of that particular game is completely irrelevant.

[Zeebu]

We could only lose or replay.

[Black Mage]

So what you are telling me, is that whether or not there was a replay, in either situation your options were to either lose or not lose? Ok then.

The truth is that these situations pop up very fast and usually there isn't much time to deal with them. A cap pms a host saying "It's costing me too much to add!", and that information makes its way to the Ops. The Ops have to figure out what's going on, and often it is a bot/database problem (the most common problem since that is the most complicated part of the league), in which case we have to attempt to reach out to the person who designed the bot/database to see if its a fixable problem. The bot dev (if available) usually replies that its not fixable in the time-frame needed (unless its a player whose registration got screwed up in db or other simple problem) to the ops, who then have to make a decision about what to do, whether to kill the game, restart it, continue playing and hope whatever error doesn't affect the outcome, or attempt some other random fix, based on the severity or type of issue. The ops have to then tell the host what they are doing and if it is working, and the host then tells the arena/caps. And unfortunately, Ops have had to host more games than we'd like, because some of the most active staff members are caps or key players on the teams who have to play, so we end up having to do all of that while hosting our own games and often solving minor issues in our own hosted games.

So the problem has to make its way to the ops, the ops have to diagnose it, figure out if we can fix it, make a decision about the game, take the appropriate action, relay that all back down the grapevine, including to the 3 people who have PMed us freaking out about it, all while hosting our own games. Usually in the span of 2 minutes.

Up until this point, Ops have been dealing with a problem. Problems can be solved after the game has stared though, because it can always be restarted. However sometimes, after discussing with a bot dev, we figure out there's nothing we can do about this problem (until later), but the game then has already had a substantial amount played. Should we then kill the game, because if the team who is essentially playing with a handicap wins, it won't count? Maybe. Or everyone can just play the game and have fun. As a concession, I'll personally let the caps know next time if it probably won't count.

[Zeebu]

no...

im saying that we played a game in which the only options were to either lose or replay. the other team had the options to either win or replay.

jesus fuck how hard is that to understand. we had no chance to win a game, only to lose it.

i can spam it over and over again if you like until you admit that playing a game under those conditions is stupid.

[Zeebu]

So what you are telling me, is that whether or not there was a replay, in either situation your options were to either lose or not lose? Ok then.

Should we then kill the game, because if the team who is essentially playing with a handicap wins, it won't count? Maybe. Or everyone can just play the game and have fun. As a concession, I'll personally let the caps know next time if it probably won't count.

and, you tried to spin that pretty bad. you cant say lose or not lose, you need to say lose or win

in a game where the issue was present before it started, restarting the game should be an option.

but, the last thing you said at least lets me know that you get why this a poor choice to let the game count.

[Aura]

I agree with zeebs on this one. Both caps need to be notified that the game is void since the team with the appeal does not have the ability to lose at that current game. I don't see why the game shouldn't be played for fun though...players are there. Its good practice and some people who usually don't start have more of a chance to play at the very least. I do agree this appeal decision was correct, but let it be a lesson learned by ops from now on.

[Black Mage]

in a game where the issue was present before it started, restarting the game should be an option.

Well, the game could not be restarted because in this particular instance it would take a while to manually look up all the players used by both teams in the past 2 games that day and manually mark each player as played or not in the DB. And then WZ had to also figure out why it was counting the person again and fix the bot, or it would just happen again.

The conundrum I proposed was this: What do you do when by the time you figure out the problem the game has already begun and restarting is not an option because you can't fix it right away. You pretty much just have to let the game continue (no point in stopping it during the middle), but yes, we probably should have notified caps it probably would have to be replayed at a later date.

Instead, we decided to rely on the typical appeal process. Which is what this thread was for.

[Zeebu]

yes in that case you put a message out to the arena, once you realize this... mid game to avoid any issues.... saying that this game will not count regardless of outcome.