Blast it all to heck! Our network connection here just totally died... I'm getting 3000ms latency and 95% packet loss over our external link. If this somehow manages to get uploaded, you're going to have to run MWC99 today without me. That includes all the matches and live coverage. If there are any issues, email me, and it may get through.

[07/25/99 16:19 CDT | Butcher]

Few matches have quite the same sense of history as this week's 4T02, Civil Order vs BMF. Both of these orders could be considered Myth powerhouses, and they've locked horns from time to time over the months. Today, they will get their chance to lay it all on the line again.

We will be providing live coverage of this match on the MWC99 Hotline Server and it should be very entertaining. If you are at all curious as to how this match will turn out, please come along! The match is scheduled to start at 7pm CDT this evening and we will keep you posted as the games progress.

[07/25/99 05:18 CDT | Butcher]

Well, we're gearing up for Round Four's fallback day later on today, the 25th of July. A few matches have been played already, but there will be six games to be played at various stages today.

Because most of the Triumvirate are away, it'll just be me who has the ability to declare forfeits and resolve serious issues (not that there will be any, of course...) so if trouble arises, come and find me. I should be online for most of the day but may lag off if our network connection gets saturated. If this happens and you can't find me on bungie.net, then email me. I should reply to most emails almost instantaneously, even if I can't get on bungie.net.

This week's games should be the most intense so far. Good luck to all the teams involved.

[07/25/99 05:05 CDT | Butcher]

We're back in business! After a hiatus of about a week while we sorted out some internal issues, the MWC99 story machine is ticking along nicely again. In today's coverage, dwarven tempers flare and carnage runs riot once more on the field. Read all about it in the Breaking News.

[07/24/99 05:54 CDT | Butcher]

Results for Elimination Round Four are now up, and brackets have been posted for Winnowing Round Four (to be completed by this Sunday). Note that although we know that e.i beat DE in match 4E03, the results listed are a placeholder until we receive films.

[07/24/99 01:13 CDT | Butcher]

Snap, Krackle, Die! face the Alliance tonight at 9pm CDT. It should be a hotly contested match, and we'll be attempting to provide live coverage on MWC99 Hotline. See you all there!

[07/23/99 18:02 CDT | Butcher]

We have selected a Play of the Week and Blunder of the Week from Round Three... and surprisingly, both feature archers in starring roles. Some of these archers are more successful than others... for the inside story (complete with screenshots!), check out our Highlights Section.

[07/23/99 06:29 CDT | Butcher]

Team rosters have been updated for Round Four and are now locked until the end of the round.

As a side note, my net connection goes offline in about three hours and will be out for 2-3 days. If mail to me bounces, don't panic.

[07/21/99 00:49 CDT | Butcher]

This morning I discovered an additional constraint that has forced my hand somewhat. You may recall that there was a fire in my CS department that knocked out all our networking equipment. Well, it seems that not all the hubs were cleaned properly and they've got to be shut down again for an extended hiatus this Thursday and Friday (NZ time, this is Wednesday and Thursday US time).

This means that we can't realistically go with the 'Crucible Mark II' timetable, because I'll be totally out of touch over those two days; this doesn't exactly allow for informed debate.

Cap'n Carnage is going away on business; Imperator has dropped out of sight; Carnage has never been very active in the organisation side of things. Without any of the Triumvirate to run things and without a decision from our Mac Observer sponsors on how to handle website access, it's not going to be possible for us to get someone else to run MWC99 while I'm away. That leaves Option D: to delay the tournament's finale.

This week we will run Round Four as normal. Round Five will be run next week as normal as well, with fallbacks on Friday and Sunday. I will post the brackets for Round Six and then drop out of touch for two weeks, from 8/2 until 8/15 (or thereabouts).

Teams should play Round Six while I am away. Hopefully by the time I get back most if not all of the R6 games will be played, and we can then sort out fallbacks for the remainder, and go about scheduling Round Seven and the Grand Final.

Although the news page and all other components of the website will be static while I'm away, you will still be able to use the Forum. Also, if you want to review matches in the interim, please feel free; they will all be posted when I return.

This change of plans necessitates that we re-send the match notification emails. Each team will receive a new email with the correct fallback date (Friday / Sunday).

Yesterday evening BMF faced Alliance in the Champion Match for overall supremacy of the Top Bracket. BMF swept the match to take away a convincing 64-0 victory. They will go on to the Grand Final this Sunday!

Also yesterday evening, Civil Order defeated Glue the Moose in match 6W01. It was a hard-fought match but, alas, one marred by controversy.

The final result for the match is Civil Order 22, Glue the Moose 15... for more details of the match and the rulings associated with it, see the match coverage.

The Moose take one last bow and exit the tournament with fourth place, while Civil Order will go on to face Alliance today, in the final match of the Bottom Bracket. The winner of this match will be named the Challengers, to face BMF in the Grand Final tomorrow.

The Challenger match will take place this evening at 8pm CDT; once again we will be providing live coverage on bungie.net, and it should be a lot of fun.

[07/20/99 16:25 CDT | Butcher]

After taking account of the feedback from everyone on the forum and via email, it's obvious that compressing two rounds' worth of games into a single weekend is not a plan that most of you favour. I have drawn up an alternate plan for the next two weeks that doesn't involve such an extreme compression; I would like everyone to look at it here and let us know what you think.

If people are unwilling to compromise on this plan (or another one), then I may have to look at handing off control of the tournament for the time that I'm away (from the 3rd to the 16th of August). This is not the simple option that some of you seem to think it is; while all of the routine tasks related to the website can be accomplished via CGI scripts, if there are any problems (the kind that occur every day) then someone will have to log in to the web server directly.

The MWC99 files are hosted under the Mac Observer usercode; anyone given this access to the MWC99 site is able to access all of the Mac Observer files... the heart of their business. It seems very unlikely that the Mac Observer staff will be willing to grant this access to someone they don't trust implicitly. However I will speak with them about it.

Ignoring this problem for a moment, we'd need to find some person or people to take over what I've been doing. If you're interested, please contact us. But you would have to:

• be prepared to spend 20-30 hours a week working on the tournament, including 6-10 hours every fallback day
• have no problem with receiving 80-120 emails per day
• understand in detail how the tournament has been run so far
• be prepared to organise multiple teams of people working on other parts of the tournament
• be technically competent and very good at analysing and using unfamiliar systems. Note that being able to download plugins and install them isn't quite enough. You'd have to be fluent in C++ programming under UNIX, willing to learn the MWC datafile format and spend some time understanding how the page-generator works.

It's a big ask. Most of the internals of how the tournament have been designed with the specific intention that I would be the one using them. And while it's all good, clean code... it will require a significant investment of effort just to get your head around it. Most people competent to take over will probably already be employed as full-time programmers; all I can think of are postgraduate CS students like myself.

If you think you can help out, please contact us.

[07/19/99 23:46 CDT | Butcher]

We've selected the Highlights for Round Three, and it was a tough call; there's just so much great play going on! You can check them out in the Highlights Section... the Play of the Week and Blunder of the Week require more detailed analysis and should be up in a few days' time.

Lastly, we're always on the lookout for tips as to great moves or amazingly foolish blunders. Watching films is a time-consuming process and we often miss a lot of nice play. If you have any candidates (from your own matches or from results that you've watched), please send them in!

[07/19/99 22:08 CDT | Butcher]

Results from Round Three are up (except for 3T05, for which I still haven't received any films). Please note that no roster changes have been made for the coming week yet, as I have not had time this evening.

As far as the Crucible goes; feedback has been overwhelmingly negative. While I think that most of the points raised aren't huge problems, there's a definite groundswell against it. This presents a big problem, because August 1st is a hard deadline. I am leaving for the US early in August and I cannot allow my involvement in MWC99 to continue past about August 2nd at the latest. And because the MWC website cannot be updated without trusted access to the macobserver internals, I can't easily hand off my duties to anyone else (even if there was anyone who knew the way the website runs).

We will think about what to do over the next day or so and post more when we reach a decision. It seems likely that we will have to compress several matches into the Crucible, but perhaps by squashing up Round Four a little we can avoid a big crunch on the weekend of 30th/31st July.

NB: This means that fallback times for this week may change! We may have to push the Top Bracket fallbacks back to Friday, and the Bottom Bracket fallbacks back to Wednesday or Thursday. Please try and play your matches for this week as quickly as possible, as we are going to end up very, very short on time.

[07/19/99 08:46 CDT | Butcher]