The Final Countdown

Scott Hardie | May 22, 2015
Here's looking forward to Rock Block's summer tournament! It's about time that we got one of these underway.

I don't know exactly what time tomorrow it will start, but probably midday. I'll share details asap tomorrow.

Steve West | May 23, 2015
I'll be there!

Aaron Shurtleff | May 23, 2015
My keytar is ready!

Scott Hardie | May 23, 2015
This has turned out to be much more involved than I predicted. I'm still wrapping it up. It will begin tonight around 10pm est, or possibly 9pm.

Here's the tournament page, a few hours before any concerts begin.

Aaron Shurtleff | May 23, 2015
Interesting... I can't wait to see how this goes!! Good luck to everyone in advance!!

Aaron Shurtleff | May 24, 2015
Woo! I guess by tomorrow I will have matches going with errybody.

Just to confirm, as the loser of a match, you have no greater penalty than anyone else, right? Or do you lose one day plus one day?

Scott Hardie | May 24, 2015
Yeah, apparently since the beginning of the game, there has been a problem in the code that generates concerts, and it's only coming up now for the first time thanks to the tournament. I'm working on it now and should have all concerts generated shortly.

The loser of a concert suffers no greater penalty than anyone else, except perhaps to his or her pride.

Aaron Shurtleff | May 24, 2015
Oh. I just assumed it would be generating one match per hour until all matches were set up.

Pfft! Haven't had pride in forever!

Scott Hardie | May 24, 2015
The problem is fixed, but it left a lot of sloppy concerts with messed up values. Rather than try to repair each one, I'm just going to wipe the slate clean and spawn them all over again. Thanks for your patience with this.

I can't believe I thought this would take three hours. I've been at this all day, and already did a big chunk of the work last weekend. I'm enjoying it and all, but wow.

Chris Lemler | May 24, 2015
Scott when I tried to get to my concerts it says it's still down

Scott Hardie | May 24, 2015
It's back up and playable. If you still have a problem now, please let me know.

Chris Lemler | May 24, 2015
Thanks Scott

Scott Hardie | May 24, 2015
The band Europe will be added to the game on Sunday or Monday, with all tournament players getting a free copy.

Scott Hardie | May 24, 2015
Those fancy countdown clocks will be off by an hour for anyone in the central time zone, since they're based on your computer's clock and not the web server's clock. Nobody should rely on any Javascript countdown to be 100% accurate. :-) In case there's any doubt, the server clock is the one that matters, as indicated by the History chart at the bottom.

Scott Hardie | May 25, 2015
Two problems have been fixed: The countdown clocks now show the correct time for each player (different for each person), and the expiration date on each TFC concert is now three days instead of seven days. The latter only applies to new concerts starting as of this hour.

Aaron Shurtleff | May 25, 2015
I feel like I am personally responsible for knocking hours off everyone's clock. I swear i am not tanking it!! :-)

Aaron Shurtleff | May 25, 2015
Question. Is the spawning of normal random concerts turned off while the tournament is going on? I am good with just the tournament concerts, so I would rather not get the others, and will turn it off if I need to.

Scott Hardie | May 25, 2015
Automatic concerts continue simultaneously with the tournament concerts. You can disable them by going to your label, then the Options tab, then setting the number of automatic concerts that you want to play to 0.

I thought about doing that myself, since the number of them happening at once is daunting. But the tournament concerts don't pay out in new artist ranks, so I'm keeping as many auto concerts going as other people are willing to play against me.

Erik Bates | May 26, 2015
[hidden by request]

Aaron Shurtleff | May 26, 2015
Oh, sure. Come in now and get the best countdown clock from Steve. I see how it is!

Kidding, of course. Welcome and good luck!

Scott Hardie | May 26, 2015
Welcome (back) to the game, Erik! We're glad to have you. You picked a good time to join in. :-)

Erik Bates | May 27, 2015
[hidden by request]

Scott Hardie | May 27, 2015
Boo. :-( It's definitely tougher at first, with so few artists in your roster. The first few draws start to change that.

Chris Lemler | May 28, 2015
Scott how many ranks does the very first person get if they go out or do that get any at all. I'm a little confused on the rules.

Scott Hardie | May 28, 2015
The champion will get 50 ranks of new artists.
The first runner-up will get 40 ranks.
The second runner-up will get 30 ranks.
The third runner-up will get 20 ranks.
Everybody else who participated will get 10 ranks.

All of these ranks will get distributed to players at the very end, so the first person eliminated will have to wait a little while for their 10 ranks.

Scott Hardie | June 3, 2015
Small prize change: Everyone gets a copy of Europe, unless if you already have Europe before joining the tournament, in which case you get a different random R1. This is solely for Erik, who had the misfortune to choose Europe as one of his five artists upon joining the game, without realizing that a free copy awaited him moments later. I didn't expect that the clause would really ever apply to anyone or I would have written the rule this way to begin with. My thanks to the people who suggested this.

Good luck Justin and Steve! The rest of us are just vying over the 30-rank and 20-rank rewards. :-)

In case anybody's wondering, the new Rock Block game will not feature epic months-long tournaments every year like the old game. My plan is to offer short weeks-long tournaments throughout the year like in Pirate Paradise. (Of course, both Rock Block and Pirate Paradise require a certain minimum number of active players for these events to be feasible, which is why we're only just having the first RB event now.) This one has turned out to be a little shorter than I expected by 7-10 days or so, but it's basically moving along quickly as I thought it would, before the flurry of so many concerts at once wears out its welcome. I hope that everyone has enjoyed it.

Aaron Shurtleff | June 4, 2015
Everyone keep playing your matches! I could pull an upset! ;)

Erik Bates | June 4, 2015
[hidden by request]

Aaron Shurtleff | June 4, 2015
20 minutes left for me. Good luck to the final 2!!

Still time to refresh my clock, you guys!! :D

PS - Quote of the day is so perfect today!!!

Aaron Shurtleff | June 4, 2015
Steve West has used Resurrection. It was super effective!

Aaron Shurtleff | June 5, 2015
I cannot believe I lasted this long! I think my run is about to end, though... I think when Erik's concerts start timing out this afternoon, I was done for anyways.

Justin Woods | June 5, 2015
Congrats Steve West! I think all you have to do is wait it out. Also congrats to Aaron for almost getting the upset! Thanks Scott for a great and welcomed RB tournament.

Scott Hardie | June 6, 2015
Congrats Steve! You dominated this whole tournament, having the lead early and often, especially in the mid-section when your lead was very long over the other players. I don't know which you want most -- the gift card, the artist ranks, or the bragging rights -- but you earned them all. :-) Your gift card has just been sent.

Justin, you kicked butt too. You were neck-and-neck with Steve for much of the tournament and even ahead of him at times. You gave an award-worthy performance too.

Aaron, way to hang in there beyond all odds. That's the kind of playing that I wish I could have done. Kudos.

The rest of us played well in our own right, but these three guys took us to school. :-)

One more prize change: I'm going to do something that I wish I had done from the start in the goo game, and issue a small actual trophy for winning Rock Block. You earned it, Steve, and I hope that it's incentive to everybody else to try that much more.

I have already started work on our next tournament to begin sometime around September 1, based on "Happy Together" by the Turtles. Here's looking forward to it already. :-)

Scott Hardie | June 6, 2015
Each time you had a draw or a win, or someone else had a win, you started over with a new countdown, trying not to have your "final" countdown. If anyone is curious, here's how many countdowns each player had over the course of the tournament:

Erik: 59
Richard: 60
Chris: 85
Joanna: 94
Scott: 101
Aaron: 116
Steve: 118
Justin: 128

Steve West | June 6, 2015
I hate to give the impression that this is easy. It's not because there's a lot of good players here. You guys made it tough and I appreciate playing against you all. Thanks for playing and thanks to Scott for making it all possible.

Chris Lemler | June 10, 2015
Congrats Steve for well deserved victory in the tourney.....Sorry for the late comment