The Observatory - Pilot episode - Fri 2/12 7 PM ET

[Jediluke]

Yeah, I enjoyed the commentary!

[roncli]

Thanks everyone who attended, whether you were casting, playing, or watching. This definitely exceeded my expectations, and it was awesome to see people not just from the Descent community stop in as well.

This is definitely going to happen again, but I need to think about a couple of possible formats for it. I'm strongly thinking of doing something like an 8-man tournament (7 matches), and the idea of doing specific showcase matches that are planned in advance was tossed about as well. But what do you guys think? What kind of format would you like to see?

I'll be splitting the videos this week and putting them up on YouTube, and add them to the website, as well as to the individual matches.

Also, the final reactor kill count was 1. Nice job Cyrus! (If it makes you feel any better, I died to a reactor later that night. Playing drunk Morfod.)

[organic io (formerly goldie)]

[LotharBot]

one of the nice things about this show was there was a good mix of different levels of pilots. I think we'd lose that if we went for a tourney format -- it'd either be like, all gold all the time, or there would be a handful of big blowout matches before a Jedi-Mark final.

I'd rather just keep it open. Maybe even let the audience suggest matchups they'd like to see, from a list of pilots who are available to play.

[roncli]

The thing I don't like about only doing open games is that it gives little reason to watch outside of "Oh my god, this is Descent, this is COOL." which means pretty much only us would ever watch it. The reason I did open games this time around was to prove whether or not a show like this would work. (It did!)

I would be interested in seeing marquee matches... Jedi vs Mark, Morfod vs Melvin, Vaniac vs Lady Silver... or some special matches like Lothar in Octave Pro, Entropy in Zenith, something like that.

Maybe something like a bus driver episode? People would sign up to defend their home level, and others would sign up to challenge them.

I wanted to integrate deeper DCL stats into the show (match history between the two, positions on the ladder, etc), but I didn't have enough time to set it up. Maybe next time.

[LotharBot]

well, keep in mind that people who aren't us don't know who is gold, silver, or bronze or what that means. So it's not like "it's a tournament" particularly helps -- and if it means more blowout matches, I think it hurts.

But yeah, I think you could gain motivation by doing marquee matches. Pilots who have a long and balanced history in a specific level -- like me and Drakona in Power Pro, or Morfod and melvin in Lurk -- could duke it out. Busdriver matchups would be good.

IMO the coolest thing would be if there was a promotion challenge where at least a few of the matches (especially if it's the last few) could be played for The Observatory.

[organic io (formerly goldie)]

Really cool stuff Roncli, well done! I watched most of the Mark vs Cyrus, and all of the Jediluke vs Morfod games. Very very cool what you guys are doing here these days. I enjoyed it

[Lady Silver]

[Entropy]

Time to start playing more Zenith...

[roncli]

So I am really leaning towards a "Defend Your Turf" episode. This would allow two DIFFERENT sign up periods that should allow for some interesting matchups.

For a week prior to the episode, individuals would sign up to defend their official DCL home level. During the episode itself, there'd be sign ups for people to challenge one of those pilots who are trying to defend their home level. Priority would be given to matches that occur in the same tier (to avoid gold vs bronze blowouts!), and then first come first serve.

I feel this would encourage more people to sign up in advance, and then people can pick their targets from willing opponents instead of trying to find someone to pair off with.