Tournaments now open at specific time

redlinederby Saturday, 4/2/2011
Site manager

Recently a point came up about the time when tournaments open for entries, which has been midnight on the day scheduled. The concern was about the midnight time and it being somewhat "unconventional". It was a valid point and today's update changes this.

Starting next week, tournaments will open on a specific date All the times are Eastern, so please adjust for your time zone.

Hopefully this will open up the entries to some people that were otherwise getting left out because of the late night schedule for entries. This update also lets me schedule tournaments a little tighter so I am able to group tournaments on a single day rather than results on one day and then the next ones open the following day. I'll have to see how that will work with my personal schedule.

But there you go. Just pay attention to the time now. Everything else is running like normal.


Discussion

File this in the "you can't please everyone" department.

A 9am Eastern time zone picking start means a 6am (on a Sunday morning) start time for those of us on the left coast. I'd venture to say that's much more difficult than a midnight Saturday night start time was for those of you in the East.

Since I don't plan on ever being awake at 6am on a Sunday (unless I'm still up from the night before), I do hope the rest of you pick some good cars for me to predict!

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seattlegreyy 4/10/11

File this in the "boy, is my face red" department...AND the "doth protest too much" department...

...as I managed to select cars in both races this week.

(Must have been a glitch, though, as it wasn't within the announced time frame. The dashboard indicated the tournaments were open when I checked last night and it seemed to accept my selections. If it was unfair that I exploited it, I'll accept having my selected cars replaced by others... This is, after all, a fun game on its merits and I'm really not trying to "break it" to get any sort of advantage.)

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JDC442 4/10/11

I believe the selections are available at 9 pm for us over here on the west coast. Where you able to pick before then?

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seattlegreyy 4/10/11

According to the original post, this was supposed to be the week that car selections would start at 9am Eastern.

I was, thus, surprised to find out that at whatever o'clock it was when I got home from the comedy club last night (possibly 1am Pacific) that car selection was open.

...like I said, felt like a glitch...but I picked cars because I could. (Using my "This is 'murrika, damn it" justification. )

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redlinederby 4/10/11
Site manager

Okay...this was the wrong weekend to launch the time feature as I was at a conference Sat and Sun morning and wasn't able to watch, debug or test the time. I mean, I did testing offline and it worked but that doesn't always mean it makes it to production that way. My apologies for anyone miffed by this. I'll look into what happened (or didn't happen) and have it fixed for sure prior to next weekend. Totally sorry, everyone.

Glitches aside, the time situation is absolutely a "can't please everyone" situation....and I don't know exactly how to address it. Unless there is some magical time we (as the power players) can agree on...? Opening at midnight means you have to stay up late in the east. A 9a morning time means to its too early on the west. Soooo...what to do? I'm open to suggestions here. I set things based on Eastern time...so is 3P better? 6P? Noon?

We all want it to be fair but even then not everyone will be happy and that's just a fact. So please throw out your suggestions and I'll make an executive decision based on that.

...and in the meantime I'll be fixing the glitch. Again, sorry for any confusion or ruined plans.

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JDC442 4/11/11

What about opening the picks at 9pm eastern time on Saturday?

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markkaz 4/13/11

Nobody can have an advantage if the feature of entering racers was removed.

Nobody can have an advantage if the feature of entering racers was removed.

Very true, but I like the challenge of it.

It would definitely lose some luster if the option was totally removed.


As far as time wise..... Just tell me when it opens and I'll be there.

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redlinederby 4/15/11
Site manager

Removing entry is not a real option for two big reasons. One, it does add something to game more than just picking. It was designed to be a "bonus" part of interaction for players. Second, it saves me from having to pick the cars! ...because my solution would be to randomly fill each tournament. Half the fun is seeing cars regularly race and watch how they do, just like a sports team.

Based on the feedback I think I got that as long as the open time is crazy early in the morning or crazy late at night, everyone will be less unhappy...and I think that's fair and I agree.

I'll try and keep the start times consistent each week but it may vary at times.

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