Rastlin of the Madrigal Chamber of Commerce recently asked MWC99 staff if we had the time for him to conduct a brief interview. We're all a bunch of egomaniacs with copious amounts of spare time, so we said yes. Here is the (edited) transcript of the interview, conducted via Hotline. All the questions with Cap'n Carnage were done by email and spliced in later.

--

Rastlin: First, how did you go about finding your MWC team?

Butcher: Well, you may or may not remember that I posted a few times to various b.net forums, and I also actively went head-hunting some people (all of whom declined, BTW... heh). There were only a few volunteers at first, but those who responded to the initial email / forum posting are mostly still with the team now.

Rastlin: Heh, so you wanted certain people, but they said no way?

Butcher: Yeah... rather not say who though.

Rastlin: Cap'n Carnage, how did it come about that you found yourself being a staff member of the MWC? Did Butcher come and ask you, or did you send an email in showing interest in the Tournament?

Cap'n Carnage: Well, several months ago Butcher made an announcement (I think on the Townhall forum) asking for people that were interested in helping with "a future project." I've always been very impressed by his endeavors and so I told him I'd like to help. After a little while, he let us know that the project was MWC99.

--

Rastlin: Zeronova, what part of the MWC do you help in?

Zeronova: I'm an assistant judge, I help out mostly on the fallback days, explaining rules etc.

Butcher: We have four assistant judges from memory. Pele, Zero, Black Death, and AppleG3.

Rastlin: I heard that you made one of the Triumvirate team a assiant judge

Butcher: Not really. The Triumvirate was originally four people (heh!) because we thought that not everyone would probably have the time and energy to stick with it all the way through the development process; so we had a spare. ;)

Butcher: Cap'n Carnage, Woden, Imperator, and Carnage were the original team and between us we're responsible for the rules of MWC99 and the tournament design on the high level (although CC can take most of the credit for actually writing the rules).

Butcher: Anyway, about a month and a bit ago, Woden realised that his work commitments just didn't allow him to participate as much as he had thought, so he withdrew from the ranks of the Judges. He said that he'd like to help out by organising the Assistant Judges when the time came, but now that the time's come he still doesn't have any time to help. :)

Rastlin: Was this the team that picked the games for the MWC?

Butcher: Yeah, it was, kind of. The Triumvirate and myself kicked around map and game ideas, and we also had a large group of people who helped us playtest games to see how fun they were (civil, MCC mostly, a few others).

Rastlin: I remember.

--

Rastlin: What does Triumvirate mean related to the MWC. I looked it up and it says that it is a ruling body of three person, So what is it that you rule?

Cap'n Carnage: Butcher has done virtually all the work in his past tournaments. Now he's learned to delegate. He picked four people (Carnage, Imperator, Woden and myself) to be a Triumvirate responsible for coming up with the tournament format, rules, and making other tournament-related decisions. He picked four people because he figured someone would probably have to bow out due to real-life scheduling difficulties, and sure enough Woden had to drop out of sight for quite a while. So we made him the Head Assistant Judge just to fix him. ;)

Cap'n Carnage: What does the Triumvirate do? Well, we debated the tournament structure and rules _ad_nauseum_. We wrote out the rules, playtested and picked the games and maps to be used, came up with the scoring system, and decided how to handle various irregularities (disconnects, out-of-sync, forfeits). Now that that's done, we are responsible for deciding how to handle problems that arise (such as teams playing on the wrong map) and general administration. If a rules question/problem comes up, we discuss it and then vote on a resolution. If a question involves a team one of us is affiliated with, we are disqualified from voting. (So if MCC is involved in some controversy, I will be able to voice my opinions but I won't get a vote.) If there's a tie, Butcher casts the deciding vote.

--

Rastlin: Rust Dragon, what is it that you do for the MWC?

Rust Dragon: I've done all of the nice illustrations you see on the site. :) I think all of them anyway...

Butcher: Yeah, all the ones that are up so far are Rust's. We have another artist but he hasn't got any of his work up yet.

Rastlin: And they do look great!

Rust Dragon: Why, thanks. :) Took about 4 weeks in my spare time.

Rastlin: Did you help in making the page from an HTML point of view?

Rust Dragon: I had nothing to do with the HTML at all. But i do do web stuff. www.secretlair.com/rust_dragon ... shameless plug. :)

Rastlin: So butcher ask you to whip something up and you went to it?

Rust Dragon: He gave me some ideas, and cracked the whip.

Butcher: There was a bit of whipping involved, yeah.

Rust Dragon: It was brutal.

--

Rastlin: So, you are a writer, Imperator?

Imperator: I was an English major, does that count?

Rastlin: Heh, I mean for the MWC... or am I off base here?

Imperator: I'm a member of the Triumvirate.

Rastlin: Ahh, so you help in rule making and game picking?

Butcher: Imp's more involved with the organisation side, and stomping on bad people. CC and I did most of the rules and games, I think it would be fair to say.

Imperator: I don't mind having people get angry at me. I didn't do nearly as much with the rules and games as Butcher and CC did, they really did 90% of that.

--

Rastlin: One thing the MCC membership wanted to know is how did Stampede Desert make it to be a game on MWC... ?!

Butcher: Desert Stampede is a favourite of mine! I *really* like the tradeoff between # peegs and amount of troops.

Rust Dragon: Stampede Desert was a great idea. Forces people to use some actual strategy.

Imperator: Yup, that was the thinking

Zeronova: Aye, stampede is fun!

Butcher: And yet you see people still getting max peeg and getting pasted... sigh. I think that the Stampede game is really going to separate the warriors from the thrall as far as orders in the QR are concerned.

Rastlin: Heh, well, it threw us MCC folks for a spin. It should be interesting.

Butcher: It requires a lot of diverse skills in order to play well. Scouting, pus attack, defense of fragile units, good trading sense, etc etc.

Rust Dragon: Basically all Ghol work. Heheh. I love ghols.

Butcher: Rust, certainly ghols are the most important units on that map. Ever tried to catch a pig with a warrior?

--

Rastlin: Cap'n Carnage, I know you are one of the writers for the MWC, writing those nice things about MCC heh... Do all of you (writers) work together in making the story line run smooth? Did you guys get together and work as a group to outline the story? How did you as writers go about making the story?

Rastlin: I know when I write something I like to make the characters first, then think of what I would like for an ending and work back from there. Did you guys have a format type thing like this?

Cap'n Carnage: Well, Butcher came up with the basic premise that's laid out in the "Alric's Call" scroll. He also set up the main themes that he wants to explore with the story. I only joined the writing group after the rules were pretty much done so I don't know that much about what went on before then. Since I joined there have been a few roundtable discussions via Hotline where we bounced ideas off of one another and came up with other story beats we want to make sure we covered. Many of these involve the fictional MWC competition and a lot of things (humorous and otherwise) that fall naturally out of that.

Cap'n Carnage: What we have now is a master list of articles (around 60 I think) and a brief 1 paragraph synopsis of each describing the points that need to be gotten across. From that, the writers will grab a story that sounds interesting or that needs to be completed soon so it can be posted, write it up, and post it to a mailing list for review and comment.

Rastlin: Speaking of Characters, did you all have part in making them for the MWC? or did Butcher have ones already made up that you had to work with?

Cap'n Carnage: There's a little of both. Some Butcher came up with, and others were developed by the writers. Take that Madgrigal Minister of Games, for instance -- he's QUITE a character.

Rastlin: I have not seen a whole lot of change in writing style, is this coincidence or did you as writers get together and choose a style that you should try to stick to?

Cap'n Carnage: Well, part of the reason for that I think is that Butcher is doing the final proofreading and editing before posting stories. So it's natural that his voice tends to show through. In addition, we've tended to go with the newspaper article conceit quite a bit. It works, but I think it does tend to be a bit limiting after a while. The problem I see is that once we've gone down that road a ways, it can be confusing to shift gears and have a standard prose fiction piece in the mix.

--

Rastlin: Do we have any other writers here?

Butcher: I've been doing some writing... not much recently, but a lot more before the matches started.

Rust Dragon: That Alric piece was nice. On the scroll. Very imperious.

Butcher: That's mine and Logoth's I think.

Rastlin: I notice that the styles are basically the same; do you have a format you stick to?

Butcher: Well, before any article goes up on the website, I give it the once-over and convert it to what I consider to be a consistent style. But we don't have style guides or anything like that.

Rastlin: So there was no storyline laid out first before writing?

Butcher: What makes you say that?! :) I had a reasonably flexible storyline in my mind before we started MWC development. About three weeks into the development (still 2 months ago), I went through M2 using Control-+ to skip every level and read up on the storyline. Around then I started getting the ideas for a storyline that could link the M2 storyline up into a World Cup.

Rust Dragon: No easy feat I'm sure...

Rastlin: So did you make the characters as well then?

Butcher: Most of em... actually, most of the characters just keep popping up. We invent them for an article (e.g. Professor Fanshaw) and then find excuses to use them again.

Rust Dragon: Just like TV.

Butcher: Anyway, to get back to your earlier question, yes, there is a plan. I have a document that outlines every article we're going to write from here to the end of the storyline (there's about 50 of them left) and has sketch notes for each one. We haven't done the ending yet, but we know what's basically going to happen.

Rust Dragon: Arrgghh... no more sketches!

Butcher: Heh Rust, that's why we've got another artist! He is going to be doing illustrations for the storyline we hope.

Rust Dragon: Woohoo! My fingers bled after those Pool images man. I can kick back and go to sleep finally. :)

Butcher: Rust, I _feel your pain_. ;)

Rust Dragon: I bet :)

Butcher: (aside to Rastlin) see, this is why I like having a team. I get to inflict sleep deprivation on _other_ people as well as myself!

--

Rastlin: I see you have learned to deligate some this time around, not like TBC.

Butcher: Yes, that was a big concern of mine.

Rust Dragon: Butcher was a great Project Manager. But that whip hurt something fierce.

Butcher: And the reason for that is because lately I've had a lot of other things going on in my life and I can't guarantee that I'm not going to suddenly drop out of touch for a week or so. So my role this time around is largely as a coordinator and manager. While I'm still doing a lot of the work myself it's all stuff that others can do if they have to.

Rust Dragon: Wait, did you say "life?"

Butcher: Quiet, you!

Imperator: Having lots of people means that as various people go out of touch for a couple weeks at a time, we still have a tourney going on.

--

Rastlin: Quiz time. What is it you do, Carnage?

Carnage: I am a member of the triumvirate with Imp and CC.

Rastlin: So what is the biggest thing you have done in the MWC?

Butcher: Carnage basically just hangs around on the email list and helps out with miscellaneous stuff. I can't think of anything specific that he does, come to think of it. :) (just kidding Carnage!)

Carnage: Heh, well, sad to say I wasn't much of a help during the rulesmaking process, but I now help out as much as possible during match disputes.

Rastlin: It must be nice to work with a buch of great guys.

Carnage: Heh, sure is!

Rastlin: Though I am not sure about Butcher.

*** Butcher hides his whip
Butcher: It's been fun so far.

--

Rastlin: How much time is put into making the MWC run in a day?

Imperator: 48 manhours, give or take a small slave labor force.

Butcher: I can only really account for my time accurately... I spend 45-50 hours a week running MWC, at least in the Qualifying Round. Right now, I'd say that we have probably 10-15 reviewers who are contributing an hour or two here or there, also. As for the others...

Rastlin: WOW, that is a lot.

Zeronova: For me, it's around 10 minutes a day, except for the fallback days. I spend hours slaving on b.net for the fallback days though. :)

Carnage: Heh, I only put my time in when solving disputes and answering questions... not that much time in a week. Maybe 2 hours on fallback days, usually more.

Imperator: For me, it varies between 15 minutes on days like this and 8 hours on Sundays.

Butcher: And of course we're not counting the players' teams here. They're really putting in the hard hours. You know, I just randomly popped onto b.net the other day and found three MWC99 matches in progress.

Imperator: Neat(!)

Butcher: Certainly it's a big effort by a lot of people.

Rastlin: I bet.

Imperator: I think the productivity drain we're providing is competitive with a small-scale nuclear war.

Rastlin: Cap'n Carnage, working with the MWC takes a lot of work I am sure, but do the staff meet once a week or something to talk about certain matters that pop up?

Cap'n Carnage: We're in touch via email pretty much constantly. When there's something that requires extended discussion, we'll meet on Hotline to chat about it.

Rastlin: Are you enjoying you time working with MWC?

Cap'n Carnage: Yes. Of course, it's pretty much taken over my life recently. I used to play Myth, now it seems I only organize other people's playing time. I'm enjoying it because it's my opportunity to give something back to the community that has given me a lot of entertainment over the past 18 or so months. My only regret is that I'm not playing, but we felt that having members of the Triumvirate playing in the tourney would look bad and might lead to accusations of favoritism.

--

Rastlin: How did you come up with the order ranking for the page?

Butcher: Ah, the infamous threat ratings. They're basically just opinion. Mine and CC's... based on our experience of the "Myth Community".

Rastlin: I noticed MCC got a three trow, heh. Did you take some heat on them?

Imperator: Yeah, we don't like MCC, 'cause you all suck. :P

Butcher: We've taken a lot of heat, mostly from ranked orders who we don't know from a hole in the ground. HOW DARE YOU NOT GIVE DWARVEN MAFIA FIVE TRO! etc.

Imperator: WE R DA GRATAST ORDA SO GIV US DA DETH TROS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Carnage: I really think you underrated the Crackheadz. I mean, they're the Crackheadz for gosh sakes!

Butcher: Let's just say that these orders are lucky I haven't cross-referenced their player list vs the admins' little black books (... although Mordia's little blamming frenzy lately on droppers has thinned out the ranks of a few orders in a big way).

Zeronova: Oh, and for the record, no bribes have been taken. Thus far.

Butcher: However, it's worth noting that the threat ratings will be updated as matches come in. For example, Dwarven Mafia (who were only given one trow) are already at two and may get to three if they do well this week. And it works the other way too; I hear that Companions got stomped into little pieces by Nanus Improbus, which might cost them their four trow.

Imperator: This way, we can retroactively appear to have predicted everyone accurately.

--

Rastlin: Have there been any conflicts as of yet?

Butcher: What kind of conflicts?

Rastlin: With the rules, etc, teams not showing up.

Carnage: One forfeit has occurred, yes.

Butcher: Rolling Rock and Odin were arguing at each other about people logging in on ordermates' accounts and we had to make some rules to cover that situation.

Zeronova: There have been a few cases now with game messups.

Butcher: CoL and LofG played Flag Rally on Drowned Kingdom by mistake. "oops"

Imperator: "but y are we penalized 29 pooints?!!?"

Butcher: And just this week, Wolfpack didn't believe their opponents when they told them that there was a limit of seven people per team, and tried to field eight... they may regret that.

Rastlin: Heh... about playing times; who came up with the dead line rule?

Butcher: I did. We are staying way the hell away from scheduling issues. I don't know if you followed MWC98, but we had some real Issues with Mac Gamers' Guild and a few other orders who got irate because they were made to forfeit their matches due to the other order's not showing up.

Imperator: Now, we've got strict deadlines set ahead of time. If you can't make them, tough.

Butcher: And also, we had trouble with orders getting the times wrong, both turning up at different times, and both claiming that the other one forfeited to them. This time around forfeits can only be declared at a pre-specified time by a MWC99 Judge and it makes the whole thing SO much easier.

Rastlin: I can see now why it was a good idea...

Butcher: Teams hate it though. I have a feeling that a lot of people will be unimpressed with how early their fallback times are on Sunday afternoon (we're starting at midday). But it's necessary if you want to try and schedule 96 matches in a single afternoon.

Carnage: That'll be tough on PST players. Lotta people sleep in late on weekends ya know! :)

Butcher: Tough = 10am? Snort. I'll be getting up at 4am in order to make the midday start, don't give me that.

Rastlin: Where is it you live, if you do not mind me asking?

Butcher: I live in New Zealand.

Rastlin: Ahh, that is why I never see you.

--

Rastlin: Well here is the big question, or the first one... who do you guys think will be in the top 5/10, and who do you think has the best shot of winning?

Imperator: See the Threat Ratings :)

Butcher: Everyone else can answer this one before I do. :)
*** Butcher waves at Imp, Carnage and Zero

Rastlin: Take a stab at it guys, maybe you will be right. Start a betting pool!

Butcher: On that note, a betting pool is on the cards. I plan to put one up when the teams that make it into the DE ladder are announced. Sigh, my 'to-do' list is as long as my arm...

Zeronova: Oh, yum. Yeah, the Threat Ratings can't be wrong. :) Well, just from playing with people, I can testify that the usual suspects ARE in fact pretty good.

Cap'n Carnage: Yikes, that's a toughie. How about I give you my picks for the 6 teams that will survive into round 6? I'd say that MCC has a good shot to make it to the final rounds. They have friends in high places, you know. Civil definitely. BMF and Evil Incorporated will probably make it. And to round it out, the Companions and ... maybe the Sabre Rummers. Assuming they don't drive the officials crazy with their faux-pirate schtick and get expelled early.

Carnage: I'd go with BMF and civil in the top 10 at least, most surely the top 5... but I really like ni's chances too.

Imperator: I think ~C~ is very underrated, actually, they have a good shot at it.

Carnage: Overrated more like it. They are good, but looked weak against ni. I'd really like to go with DCL but they looked very weak the first week :(

Butcher: Well, my opinions of their play are spelt out in their threat rating.

Rastlin: I know you all think that MCC will be there

Zeronova: Personally, I'd go with Desf to take it all.
*** Zeronova coughs

Imperator: MCC probably will make it fairly far, and has a chance at taking it all.

Carnage: MCC will be there in the top 10.

Rastlin: We can only hope!

Butcher: I'm betting that Civil Order have what it takes, but they do have a tendency to choke at times. The interesting thing about the Myth community is that because of the variation in maps and games, any of the top orders can beat any of the top orders on some particular field.

Imperator: I really think it's far too early to tell who'll stay together, and who'll stop practicing and fall flat. Remember that the double elimination ladder allows a team with a defeat to win...

Butcher: Let's ask the public... this betting pool will be intriguing.

Rastlin: Yes, I am looking foward to it.

--

Rastlin: Hmm.. why was the entry registration so hard?

Butcher: Entry registration really wasn't technically that hard.

Rastlin: But it was a lot of work.

Imperator: We should have made it harder, to weed out illiterate pplz.

Butcher: I honestly don't know why so many people had a problem with it. However, having said that, a form might have been better.

Carnage: Must be the screenshot taking, B.

Rastlin: Getting the members of a certain order to do someting like that is hard.

Zeronova: People can be so lazy. ;)

Butcher: But really, the problem with a form is that people post incomplete information and then get upset because "I filled in the form dammit!" In the end, I think our solution wasn't a bad one, but it was a *hell* of a lot of work (for us!).

Rastlin: So you made it this way to make information getting easier?

Butcher: Not really Rastlin. Our entry process was done on the assumption that the majority of people who we wanted in the tournament would be prepared to put in a little bit of effort in order to do so.

Carnage: And be competent enough to do so too!

Butcher: In hindsight, we should have pointed out what all the information was going to be used for, and how cool it really is to have this much information tracked about your order.

Rastlin: Yes, I thought it was a great idea.

Butcher: A lot of people got grumpy at having to collect so much info, and then when it was posted turned around and said "THIS SITE KICKS ASS!" ... but there's really not much you can do about that.

Rastlin: And that it does!

--

Rastlin: When I talked to you last time you said that you would of like to make a myth league, is there a chance that it might be your next project?

Butcher: About the Myth league: it would be an interesting project.

Zeronova: Huge time requirements, I'd think.

Butcher: I personally don't believe that there is enough support in the M2 community for a league to last very long.

Rastlin: I am not sure, but is MLM gone now?

Butcher: Moridin said that he was considering a MLM Season II but that it would be pushed to post-MWC at the earliest.

Butcher: I would almost certainly make any league invitation-only.

Rastlin: Yes, I can see how it would be better that way.

Butcher: One thing that MWC99 has really brought home to me is just how different the M2 bungie.net community is to M:TFL. M:TFL had a large proportion of the kind of orders that you would nowadays call "old-school" or "chivalrous". M2 is by comparison populated by hordes of squalling adolescents (of all ages).

Rastlin: Yes, we are a dying race.

Butcher: And I think that the MWC99 entrants showcase this, to be blunt.

Carnage: Any chance for another FFA tournament, B?

Butcher: No.

Rastlin: So do you have anything in the works now?

Butcher: Good god, no! You heard me say how much time I was spending on MWC99. Quite honestly, MWC99 is the capstone of my tournament work, I believe. With it, I'll have achieved what I originally set out to accomplish.

Rastlin: It will be a sad day when it is over, then.

Butcher: Doesn't mean that there won't be any decent tournaments around any more though.

Rastlin: What were your goals?

Butcher: Basically, to make a name for myself in the community as someone who is capable of organising large tournaments like this. To have fun building things for others to play in. And probably most importantly, to be able to say "I did this" if I ever get asked during an interview what experience I have with online gaming.

Rastlin: So, it is the personal feeling of helping others out, making things better? You all do this for the good of the Myth community and the fun?

Butcher: Oh, don't get me wrong here Rastlin. I'm not in this for philanthropic reasons. While I do like making tournaments for people to play in, it aggravates the hell out of me that nobody else is really doing the same out there. I would love to play in a decent tournament with my order (Civil Order) but there just aren't any out there. The OGL league is fun but the 5-person limit per team is a problem.

Carnage: People are just lazy, Butch, and even if they do start one it's a shame they aren't as good as yours. :(

Butcher: Heh, well, look back at the Corporate Shakedown. While fun, it wasn't exactly well-organised. Something like 25% of the first-round brackets never got played, From memory.

Carnage: All I remember from that is I got elimmed in the first round. :)

Zeronova: I didn't play, but I remember watching my friend Mechjock play. :)

Butcher: Mechjock did pretty well from memory.

Zeronova: Aye, I was at his house when he played in the Semi's.

--

Rastlin: Do each of you have a closing statment?

Butcher: Yeah, I have a closing statement. If anybody out there wants to join MWC99 but hasn't for various reasons - you're not in an order, or your existing order was too useless to enter (heh) - then change orders! Join an order that IS in MWC99! Because this is going to be your last chance to play in a Myth tournament like this, probably. And you'll kick yourself if you miss out.

--

Rastlin: Maybe I will think on hosting a tournament sometime, and get some help from the master.

Carnage: FFA hopefully!

Butcher: Heh, I will probably be too busy to actually help you a great deal. After MWC99 I plan on dropping off the face of bungie.net. I've been woefully neglecting my PhD over the last 5-6 weeks, and for the rest of the QR too probably.

Carnage: You won't be around for Oni or anything, Butcher?

Butcher: Oni doesn't interest me, Carnage.

Carnage: Ah.

Imperator: Hrm, higher education /is/ mildly important.

Rastlin: So you are giving up myth to do some real life stuff - we shall miss you I am sure.

Butcher: I wouldn't put it that way necessarily, although that's the way it will seem to you of course. I'm moving on from Myth to another piece in my Plan.

Rastlin: And that is????

Butcher: Well, let's just say that three years from now I'd quite like to be working somewhere in the US in a game development company. And I like the weather in Chicago. And on that note, let's finish up, shall we?

Carnage: Gee, I wonder what Butcher means by that!

Rastlin: I wish you the best in your efforts.

Butcher: Cheers. :)