Write a bit more you say? can do!

My thinking behind the "anywhere but the arena is occ" comment was thus: Say you hold it out in the middle of that field. Going off of what a medival tourny was (and tournies today as well), there would be tents, grand stands, etc setup for the event. Just going out to the middle of nowhere, well, to me at least makes as much sense as RPing a murder in front of Harnquist's shop while there are people running all about, and then trying to say you're character did that without being unoticed, or saying you are being held captive by thugs in the middle of the Laanx temple.
I'm not saying that in the future, when the game and the land maps are further expanded upon that having tournies in places other than the arena wouldn't be fine. I was just saying, as things are now, the only real IC place to hold a tourney, would be the arena, since that is the only area set up to facilitate proper dueling tournies ATM. Race events, are a different story though, the bigger the field the better.

Just my opinion at least.
Hmm, what else. Ah yes, about the lag. I've attended a few of your past tournies. From what I have witnessed, you've done a DR of a job at making them fair and just.
My point about the lag was simply to say that if we tried to have it so that it was up to the players to monitor their health bar and then yield after it dropped past a certain point, well, it would be too subjective in determining a winner. Lag would be a major factor. We all know that the stats don't update in any real time fashion, simply due to where the server sits. Can't be helped. The other example I gave was that say both players hit each other and fall below the certain yield point. Determining a winner in that situation would be more difficult than it needs to be if the dueling system was simply expanded upon. It probably will though, just everything takes time is all.
I saw your race you recently put on as well. Not first hand though, but I did hear about it. I thought it was well planned out, and the "batton" thing was a key point. Equaled the playing field between the slower computers and the faster computers well. Over all, I think you and your team have done one DR of a job putting together these tournies.
I guess I forgot to mention that in my first post since I was concentrating on the "why, in certain situations, GM involvement should be allowed in tournies, such as a dueling tourny" point I was making. Hope this clears up some things.
From my view point, GMs should be allowed to use thier powers in certain instances until the game mechanics themselves are developed to a point where GMs don't need to be involved. I'd like to believe many GMs and players agree with this, and would hope that someone with the ability to do so will take this issue up with the people the have the power to say yes/no to this idea again.
I believe Talad wants a game where eveyone is in character as much as possible. Liminating the long OOC run back to the tourny after a loss in one of the rounds by allowing GMs to use thier ability to teleport players directly back to the side lines would help reduce OOC situations. Then, when the duel abilities are further developed, GMs using thier special abilities won't be needed anymore.
All I'm trying to say is that GMs should be able to use thier powers to help the RP of the game in areas where the current game mechanics lack until the time when the game mechanics can support such RP themselces. I thought the whole idea of the GM team was to help nurish the RP and reduce the OOC in the world. Using the teleport command on the losers of tourny matches would do just that.
Just another few hours and I'll be off of work for 2 days. \m/