Here are my thoughts:
1) I'm sorry that a lot of people felt the BATTLEMANIA match didn't deliver. I had from last Wednesday until when it was posted to work on it. Jesse joined in on Monday to help get it done. I'm sorry that a lot of you don't like my writing, and for what it's worth, I have noted a lot of the constructive suggestions that people have given here. For example, I believe Jorden King said he would have liked to see more action in the match. I appreciate that.
Damien, my original plans had J.B. Ronie eliminating 4 or 5 people right when he came in, as he had earned the most eliminations. I wanted to have him come in and clean house. Someone suggested I do otherwise and I followed that suggestion. It was an error of judgement on my part.
2) There were lots of things in this process that I had wanted done differently. I had wanted the event to be held in October and involve months of planning, organizing, and then finally hype. I felt that Al Envy and Austen Impact shouldn't have been disqualified for using one another's characters in their roleplays, as they had permission, and I felt that the rule should have been the standard "
No using other people's characters without their permission." Also about Lord Raab's one minute late RP, I was the one who went to bat for him to be allowed in as an alternate, because it was only one minute late. I know that was a hot button issue, even with the other roleplayers.
Ultimately, there were a lot of things I gave up on that perhaps I shouldn't have. And that's my fault.
3) Please don't bash the roleplays that people here wrote. We're all of an adult age and should be capable of acting as such. People put a lot of effort into their roleplays. If you're such a better writer than they are, why not offer them some advice on how to make their writing better rather than trying to make them feel bad about it? Please, people, be constructive. That's one thing I've always stood for and tried to accomplish whenever I host an EFG show, whether you like the shows I host or not.
Which brings us to...
4) We tried to do something to bring the community together and to revitalize the use of efed community forums. We picked FWrestling for various reasons including its future plans involving their website when it launches and the set-up with several efeds being hosted here. To me, it's an ideal set up that I would like to see utilized in the future. I can see now that this project has probably been a failure, although I do think Dan said somewhere that he recruited for Legacy of Champions from this. So at least some positive came out of it (hopefully).
A few of the people have told me that they had a good time here, and I'm happy for that. Jorden King mentioned that he felt this was a good send off for his character, and that's a pretty huge deal.
5) We had intended to hold this event without a cash prize on the line. Colin was generous enough to volunteer a cash prize of $100 to the winner. Dusty from EWZine was kind enough to offer $50 to the winner and $25 to the runner-up. Both cash prizes were completely unsolicited and I thank them both greatly for their offers.
I have heard this morning that Colin's payment was sent to the winner, Shawn-Jessica Hart, via paypal. I need to discuss with Dusty how we'll handle the tie for second place. We didn't foresee a tie happening. It seemed like a longshot.
6) I apologize for all of the drama that has occurred during the course of BATTLEMANIA. As it stands right now, I don't have any desire to run another interfed event in the near future.
And now some things I've learned from anyone else wanting to host an interfed event:
1) There will always be a high likelihood of drama resulting from wins and losses or who placed where. This will be unavoidable. Just be sure to
.
2) Keep your judges anonymous and separated. Judges shouldn't even know who other judges are. If the identity of that judge becomes public knowledge, then immediately relieve that judge of duty. Use private ballots for judging, and if possible, ask that the judges provide reasoning for each decision.
3) Make sure to lead the match-writing for yourself. Don't let someone else convince you to let them do it. You will be held responsible for late or inadequate results. Don't give anyone the opportunity to be the monkey wrench on the rails.
If you do have other match-writers involved, be sure to set hard deadlines on when the match should be submitted
taking into considering how much time you will need to finish it. In a tournament, try to keep as much communication as possible with your match-writers. If you are using a team to write something like a battle royal, then start the writing yourself.
4) Have rules that are clearly laid out, and stick to them. Use rules that are common in most efeds.
5) Set up a clear set of criteria to be used in judging. <--- That one comes from Mike Best. Thanks, Mike.
All in all, I was happy with the overall effort put in by all of the roleplayers who signed up. I appreciate how eager some of you were, right down to Ataxia I think it was, who posted his roleplay an hour early.
Thank you to everyone who participated. Your comments are the ones that will carry the most weight with me.
Congratulations to Shawn-Jessica Hart for winning, "The Cyclone" Jordan King and Derecho for being tied runners-up, Matt Meyhu for spending the most time in the ring, and J.B. Ronie for having the most eliminations.
And as always, remember to roleplay early and roleplay often.
