Is This the World We Created?

Scott Hardie | March 7, 2021
I'm pleased to announce a Rock Block tournament for the spring: Is This the World We Created?

It's a copy of the Woodstock tournament from 2019, this time based on the massive Live Aid benefit concert in 1985 that raised money and attention for famine relief in Africa. In that spirit, I'll make a donation to Save the Children on behalf of each participating player, and you're invited to donate too. I'm glad to know that our little game can do a bit of good in the world.

This tournament has twice as many "tickets" to collect as Woodstock, so this won't be over quickly. As before, the further ahead you get, the smaller the chance that any given concert will give you a ticket that you still need. Whoever is the first to collect every ticket will get a big prize.

Seven people playing in the game right now was too good of an opportunity to pass up. Chris suggested a tournament a few months ago and I'm glad that it's finally happening.

Let's have some fun! Good luck! :-)

Matthew Preston | March 8, 2021
Awesome! Thanks for your generosity and kindness, Scott. I just made a donation as well. Looking forward to the tournament!

Chris Lemler | March 8, 2021
Scott I also made a donation

Scott Hardie | March 8, 2021
Awesome! :-D The word "appropriation" gets thrown around a lot these days, but it felt wrong to build a whole tournament around the Live Aid concept without donating something to the actual cause, which is still important all these years later. I'm glad that our little game is making a tiny difference in the world. Thanks, guys. :-)

Matthew Preston | April 26, 2021
I am really enjoying this tournament! I might have campaigned for this in the past, but I thought I'd throw it out there again.
I feel that the number of ranks of artists for each participant, should be the greater of:
- The predetermined prize (100/75/50/25); or
- the total number of victories accomplished within the tournament.

My logic is that several of us are already going to pass 25 victories, but a few of us will be limited to 4th place or lower. If these were normal/automatic concerts, we'd each get 1 rank for a victory. It will sting for those participants that tried, had more than 25 victories, but their prize was diluted.

I do understand the motivation that it sets for trying harder to get a higher placing in the tournament, but let's face it, I'm not going to beat Steve :-P

Again, I'm really enjoying this and I have no plans to stop playing. Just interested in others thoughts.

Erik Bates | April 26, 2021
[hidden by request]

Matthew Preston | April 26, 2021
Erik - I'd be fine with that. Do you mean then that anyone below 4th place doesn't get any ranks (just their played victories)?

Erik Bates | April 26, 2021
[hidden by request]

Scott Hardie | April 27, 2021
For what it's worth, I don't think of the prize as being diluted. I see it as, you weren't going to play these concerts anyway except for the tournament happening, so there's no set prize for playing them to which you are entitled, except what the tournament confers. But I could definitely get behind raising the prize level given the number of concerts involved. Let me think about this and get back to you.

Erik Bates | April 27, 2021
[hidden by request]

Scott Hardie | August 26, 2021
Congrats, Steve! You took an early lead and held on to it, despite Matthew making a good run at victory at the end there. Very well done!

This one definitely dragged on too long -- this was effectively the spring-and-summer-and-almost-fall-too tournament -- due to it just being too big with the number of players that we have, not to mention the lack of availability of some of those players to play often. Lesson learned, and I will adjust my plans accordingly for future tournaments, though it will probably be a while before the next one.

I will issue prizes using Matthew's proposal: You will get either the 100/75/50/25 points that was stated in the tournament rules, or you will get 1 point per victory in tournament concerts*, whichever is higher. However, this means that prizes won't be issued until the last pending concert ends, so we'll have to wait at least a few days. I'll follow up with a message when that's done. (And if anyone's curious, I'm treating Erik and me as both earning 50 points in third place.)

Congrats to everyone on a tournament well played. And we raised $350 for a great cause too! Thanks, guys! :-)

*Voluntary forfeits will not count unless at least two turns were played. There was a flurry of forfeits near the end there as we tried to bring this to a close.

Matthew Preston | August 26, 2021
Well played, Steve! I really tried to push through at the end there, but you had the momentum all along. I thoroughly enjoyed this tournament, but yeah, I could use a break for a bit.

Steve West | August 26, 2021
You played particularly well and had a bit of momentum, yourself. Well played all..

Samir Mehta | August 27, 2021
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Scott Hardie | August 27, 2021
This tournament didn't feel longer than other long ones (to me anyway), but in fact:

Stairway to Heaven: May 17 to October 7, 2009, 144 days
Like a Rolling Stone: May 30 to September 23, 2010, 117 days
Battle of the Bands: live tournament, October 16 2010, 1 day
American Pie: May 29 to October 1, 2011, 126 days
Farewell Tour: live tournament, October 15 2011, 1 day
The Final Countdown: May 22 to June 10, 2015, 20 days
Happy Together: September 12 to December 31, 2015, 111 days (timed out)
Rockin' Robin: live tournament, February 27, 2016, 1 day
The Bird's the Word: July 29 to October 4, 2017, 68 days
Hit Me with Your Best Shot: December 2, 2017 to February 17, 2018, 78 days
Shoot to Thrill: October 7 to December 23, 2018, 78 days
Woodstock: June 3 to August 3, 2019, 62 days
We Built This City: September 6, 2019 to January 24, 2020, 141 days
Rock Around the Clock: live tournament, September 6, 2020, 1 day
Is This the World We Created?: March 7 to August 26, 2021, 173 days

So yeah, this was the longest ever, by almost a month. Crazy. I forgot that there used to be a built-in time limit for tournaments back in 2015, and having that in place would have kept this one from dragging on for so long.

Not counting the live same-day tournaments, my goal when creating a tournament is either to be short at around 30 days, or to be long at around 90 days. 173 days is just... way way too much Rock Block. :-)

I will work harder to meet that goal in the future, and to have a time limit as a fail-safe if I mess it up.

Did it feel way too long to other people? Maybe this weird pandemic is messing up my sense of time; a month now feels more like a week used to feel. :-\

Something that I've wanted to do for years and haven't had the time is to automate tournaments. Instead of having to write custom code for each one, I could simply fill out a form on the site to launch a tournament, using a new combinations of pre-existing terms each time. This would allow us to do something that Matthew suggested years ago which is to let players create tournaments themselves instead of me alone having that privilege. It would also help to avoid weird miscalculations and oversights on my part, like forgetting about the time limit. I still really hope to do this someday.

Also, unrelated: I mentioned that we raised $350 for the charity, but that was only counting the "official" amounts given on behalf of the site. Matthew and Chris also mentioned donating on their own, and other people might have done so without calling attention to it, so the actual amount must be somewhat higher. I'm really glad that we did that; it's such a great cause. Thank you to everybody who gave and participated. :-)

Erik Bates | August 27, 2021
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Chris Lemler | August 27, 2021
Steve another amazing win in RB tourney. All hail King West.

Steve West | August 27, 2021
Thanks, man.

Scott Hardie | September 7, 2021
I see that the last concert just ended. I will issue prizes in the morning.

Erik Bates | September 8, 2021
[hidden by request]

Scott Hardie | September 8, 2021
Ranks earned via place in the tournament: 100 Steve, 75 Matthew, 50 Erik, 25 Scott, 25 William, 25 Chris, 25 Aaron.

Ranks earned via winning tournament concerts (see above about forfeits not counting): 147 Steve, 63 Matthew, 55 Scott, 36 Erik, 18 William, 15 Chris.

So, by the above agreement to give each person the higher value of the two, that means the actual ranks given out as prizes are: 147 Steve, 75 Matthew, 55 Scott, 50 Erik, 25 William, 25 Chris, 25 Aaron.

Matthew Preston | September 8, 2021
Nice, thanks! And dang Steve... the rich get richer... ;-)

Steve West | September 8, 2021
Got to play to win (except the lottery).