Downpour 2013 - Official War Planning Thread

[marauder]

That must have been awesome seeing the look of shock on their faces haha. I forgot, are you doing gradschool while teaching? That's gotta be tough.

[SEAL]

Alright, it looks like we can't reserve the pavilion, so camping at Dug Hill is out. Though I suppose if we really wanted to, we could sort of sneak in and camp out in the woods, but that would leave us with the problem of where to park the cars. I will see about getting a reservation at Wilson for us. I recommend everyone bring a little bit of money to help cover the costs.

That said, we've got 1 month to go before the event. Everyone who plans to attend should at least start planning and preparing. I've almost completed the schedule, but I'm still not sure what I'm going to do with Soak 'n' Destroy. I've never played the game before, so I'm not sure how to set it up. Any suggestions? I also need to think up objectives for the big 3-hour multi-stage objective game. The rest of the rounds are pretty much decided except for a few small details like starting points, etc. I've been planning for months, and I promise everyone that the end result will be epic and worth the drive. I'm just praying that it won't rain again. If it does, the schedule will remain pretty much the same, but some rounds may be skipped if it gets really bad.

wetmonkey: That's too bad. I understand that life is probably tough for you. However this war could serve as a break too!

[HBWW]

Plans got held back because a potential future employer needs me to travel out of state for a week but has no idea when that'd be yet. I'll just figure out all this crap in the meantime and let you guys know whenever I book a flight. (Will confirm times with you guys first.)

What kind of Soakn' Destroy game were you thinking? Symmetrical or asymmetrical? Attack Target or Container Target? Number of objectives per team?

Here's a sample setup: Assault/Defense, defenders have to protect 2 Container Targets (we can use .5L's or larger), and attackers have to take them over. Game time should be 10-30 minutes (20 perhaps?) with a decent amount of respawn time; at least 30s to 2 minutes, depending on how defensible the area is.

As an example, lets say we want to set this up around the Sycamore Island treehouse area. One of the objectives would be out of the strong area to defend, closer up to the attackers' starting point. The second would be closer to the treehouse and much tougher to get. Defenders would have to respawn all the way behind the treehouse. Spawn time would be 1-2 minutes. We could throw in HTL rules and limit defenders to 1 or 2 lives each and extend the time limit to 30 minutes to compensate for the defensibility of the treehouse, although if we had more accurate WBL's or different water balloon hit rules, it'd make things much easier for the attackers.

For scaling things up for Breakthrough (the 3-phase game), I'll attempt a revised beach landing game for the Sycamore Island area:

- Expand the beach area where the attackers may land, especially if they only have two boats.
- Give shields for the attackers. Make it actually possible for them to get kills while approaching the beach. Perhaps we can limit how far up the beach the defenders may go, so that they can only get hits by long streams or water balloon throws.
- Attackers who land spawn at boat landing area. They are invincible when they are in this area and qualified to spawn. (Meaning they've passed the time limit requirements.) Once they leave the area, they are fair game. Attackers may spawn at any boat they land at, not just their own.
- Defenders' spawn points for this boat phase need to be farther back. Both teams need at least 1-2 minutes time before being allowed to spawn. We can allow 1HS style spawning too, but the time limit must be sufficient for this to work.
- Objective needs to be a quick one in the middle. An Attack Target should suffice.

After the first phase, spawn points shift. Attackers spawn at the 1st Attack Target and are subject to 1HS respawning rules. Same applies to defenders, but they spawn farther up inland. We could mix things up here by throwing an objective (or set of them) near the clubhouse area, and another near the treehouse area. Defenders can spawn near either objective set, attackers can spawn at the boats, both can spawn on 1HS rules.

It's a messy proposition, probably full of other problems, but it's a quick sample Breakthrough I threw together. Breakthrough is really not easy to setup; it may be easier to setup a multi-objective game that runs all in one phase, with 1HS spawning, fixed spawn points, and long spawn times.

Equipment ideas for objectives:
Attack Target: Squares of toilet paper posted somewhere are what I had in mind, but something like the Super Soaker practice target could work too. Something that moves, gets marked, or gets destroyed when hit by a stream/water balloon.
Container Target: Can use standard refill bottles, or special large bottles. I prefer bottles that are visually distinct from other bottles used. Buckets work too. We could even use Max-D 3000's, lol.
Flags: You guys find suitable flags better than I do anyway.


Could you post some maps of the playing area(s)? Something with enough reference that we can follow once on the field so objectives and spawn points for the special games are marked ahead of time.

[SEAL]

I was thinking of symmetrical SnD (new acronym?), because with asymmetrical, we'd have to switch sides, and there's no room in the schedule for that. Though if an asymmetrical game would work better, maybe I could shorten the long round.

As for the multi-objective game (it will probably have more than 3 phases), I appreciate your input, but we aren't playing at Sycamore Island. I kind of want it to be like campaign missions in military video games. Ideally it will be two-sided; for example, once one team completes an objective; say, they capture a hill or something. Then the other team would have to plant a "bomb" in the same place. It sounds tough, but I think I can set something up. I want it to be hardcore and long-distance as well; hence the 3-hour time limit. It will be unlike any other round played at any war so far.

I believe I posted a map of Dug Hill (West Hurley Park) in the Battlegrounds section, but there isn't much you could do with it. It's mostly broccoli, as you once put it in a chatroom. I could try to make a map of it, but I've never made a map before, so it would probably suck. Maybe my brother can do it, but I'm not sure. I will try to make everything clear to everybody though; I just have to figure out objectives and such.

[marauder]

Here's another link to the map

http://hydrowar.wordpress.com/2013/05/2 ... ttlefield/

Still very much a work in progress, I intend on eventually having a lot more info on this page.

[scottthewaterwarrior]

Just a quick update for me, or more specifically, my friends.
Bela is going to Japan and will be coming back the Thursday before the war. He can come, the question will be if he wants to as he will have to leave the next day after just traveling halfway around the world. He probably wont come, but if he does I probably wont know until right before the event.
I still have to ask Callan if he can come, though knowing how busy he usually is there is probably a negative 10 percent chance of that happening.
I'm not even going to bother with Sam, he's a pretty good fighter but he spends a little too much time in the land of X-Boxia and so he would most likely get confused by the more complex game types. I think I would also go nuts having him in a car for 6+ hours.

[HBWW]

I can't imagine jet lag works very well for any water warrior.

@SEAL: Acronym accepted. Also, the examples were setup for Sycamore because everyone here attending or possibly attending Downpour knows it. If you'd rather I used my backyard for the example, or one of the parks in Troy, you should've just told me. (Trying to get them positioned for Dug Hill sounds about as useful as playing a water war while blindfolded.)

Good point on sticking to symmetrical. If we run a collection of symmetrical games, we could just alternate starting points/bases between them, as the whole point of symmetrical games is both sides being as balanced as possible. This didn't work out exactly at the Soakemore CTF night rounds (hence why we did 2 rounds), but Dug Hill looks more receptive to balanced base setups. I'll have to check it out if I can make it to the war.

[HBWW]

I'm looking at a job offer now, just need to get the paperwork/applications done. I won't consider it official until I'm working for them, but after that, I will be able to book the flight once I'm clear on the schedule of the job.

After all that arguing in the other thread, I've thought of another issue to discuss: How experimental do we want to be with all these gametypes? Games that don't work out at all are almost a waste of time, and games that are mediocre take time from playing something that could've been more fun. On the flipside, we don't know what works great and what doesn't without trying out different things. For this particular event, obviously it's up to SEAL to decide, but it's worth thinking about for all of us as we move forward.

I've come up with odd campaign style mission games before, and would make an attempt to throw them together if I ever managed to host a community war. Basically, they would be story-missions involving three groups: Mine, SSLF, and SEALs, but I can't see it working out at all for the foreseeable future.

I've played one scenario game in airsoft before, over a field specifically setup for Airsoft. There's a hill that goes down, with some sandbags and trenches on the way (officially refered to as Normandy on the map), which leads into a "city", a collection of structures setup around a relatively small area. (Say, about the same area as the parking lot with the 3 trailers in Westland Middle School.) The whole place would be awesome for water wars. The teams were NATO vs. insurgents, with NATO starting at Normandy and the insurgency starting at the other end of the city in a smaller area of nearby woods. An NPC team played in the city, acting as civilians and defendants of the city. The teams would have to try to negotiate with them, or outright fight them. You could collect "gold blocks" (bricks) around the field and trade them in for extra perks, pretend airstrikes, bribery, etc. While carrying bricks, you're only allowed to use a pistol, or go unarmed.

While we have nowhere near enough players for anything like that, it does show that there's a lot of possibilities out there. I don't think we have enough players for these games though, we hardly have enough for larger scale objective games in the first place.

That said, I do have one game to throw in: a variation of conquest/outposts. Each outpost is a one-way objective that begins as neutral, and is permanently captured when obtained. There should be at least 3 of them scattered throughout the field, but can be many more depending on team and battlefield size. Each outpost is represented with a Container Target and has some sort of way to indicate which team captured it. Players may spawn at the outposts they capture, or spawn according to 1HS rules. Once all outposts are captured, the game continues for the remaining time limit. Teams are scored by resulting captured outposts and/or by kills. (The latter is probably too complicated, so we should probably just go by captured outposts.) Of course, we'd keep this symmetrical as mentioned earlier, for the reasons mentioned earlier. It could also be more lively than a simple SnD game with 2 objectives (one for each team). Alternatively, we could try Nerf's version that DX mentioned in the Soakemore thread.

There's a similar game called Outpost that is played in Nerf. There's a set number of bases and you try to take them all. You can only spawn at a base you control, and there's usually some way of "taking" control, such as putting your team's color flag up and taking the other team's color down. Only the number of bases you control determines who wins the round. If hits are tracked, ideally each base has a book, so a death is recorded upon spawning and a player never needs to remember more than one at a time. Also, the gametype works best without a set respawn time, just the time it takes to find a base you control and write who hit you. This makes it more difficult to take a team's last base, as they need not travel far to respawn. This makes final base fights pretty epic and does not disadvantage the attacker, who will still win on base count even if they fail to take a team's last base.

Edit: Don't feel like triple posting. Anyway, I took up the job offer. I will talk to the team about their schedule on Friday to be sure that this weekend is free. I will try to take Monday off, if not Friday in addition. Leaving Sunday afternoon would just make me miss out on almost half the war. Once I figure this all out, I just book the flight from there after confirming who's going to take me to/from the airpoint. (Both in MI and in NY when I'm there.)

Anyway, in addition to outpost/conquest, I'd like to bring up 1-flag CTF as a suggestion, just something to throw into the games grab bag if you'd like. Or we can focus on SnD/symmetrical games only?

A potentially awful game idea actually just occurred to me, one that has been brought up several times before. Each player carries a flag on their life/spawn, and if hit, must drop it where they were hit, go to their base, pick up another flag (from flag pool 1), and respawn. Spawn rules are 1HS since the time taken to retrieve the flag is similar to the time required to write down kills in a book. Players score by picking up opponents' flags (from after hitting them) and returning them to a separate flag pool (flag pool 2), which cannot be reused. The game ends either on time limit or when either team's 1st flag pool is depleted. There is no elimination round unless people want to do so.

What this game brings to the table is the same excitement of MOAB's many-flag "CTF" game, but forcing players to actually engage and make hits. Kills aren't counted, just overall team points, so risk taking would be a bit more encouraged. Is it complicated? Kind of. You could simplify it by only using one flag pool and relying only on a time limit, which I think makes it simple enough to play. So, everybody carries a flag each life, drops when it, and flags you collect have to be delivered to score. That's three bullet points there; not complicated IMO. Anyway, I'm just throwing ideas out there. This is basically 1HS but you don't score until capturing the flag an opponent leaves behind.

[SEAL]

Sounds good. Shall I add you to the attendance list?

It looks like a discussion on gametypes is needed. I know that the standard OHK/OHS games are more simple and have been fun, but there is just so much space in the schedule to do other things. If you notice, most of the games are OHK or OHS, but with a few different ones thrown in. There isn't really enough environmental variation at Dug Hill to do nothing but OHK and OHS with a CTF round or two and still keep it fresh. I want to experiment a bit, because we've already done OHK/OHS plenty of times, with mixed results, mostly depending on the terrain. The way I look at it, if there's an objective, something to motivate players to go offensive, the rounds will be more intense and rewarding. Like I said, most of the rounds will be OHK or OHS, so even if my predictions are wrong, we'll still have standard proven rounds to make the war worthwhile. Most of the fancy rounds will be pretty simple anyway. Okay, there is the 3-hour round which I'm still planning out, but hopefully that won't be as complicated as it sounds on paper. Maybe it was a bad idea, but I was starting to run out of ideas and I needed something to cover the rest of the afternoon. Besides, we'll never know how it'll turn out until we try it. Basically, it'll be like 5 or more rounds in one. If there is confusion, I will be there to conduct things (even if I'm fighting at the same time).

As for outpost/conquest, I'm already doing something like it, though I have it listed as Domination because I like the name better. It will be more linear though, because that's how the playing area is. At this point I'm pretty set on what I'm going to do. I don't want to do single-flag CTF because it turns into, as DX put it at the first Downpour, a "sprint-fest". Basically, if one team has a really fast player, he/she would just rush over to the flag and take it back to the base before the enemy even gets there. This is what happened to my team at MOAB, which was why we lost the CTF round. I'm also not too fond of all these OHS variations that people keep throwing out. I just don't see the point. Why try to improve something that already works and is simple to boot?

This may be the only war where we do all this experimenting, but I think that it's a good idea for our types of wars so far, which are more like events. The idea is for each round to be exciting and intense. Now, I've starting coming up with my own ideas for how I'd like to have community wars. Instead of events, it'd be epic if the whole war was just one long battle (which could be split up if needed). That's how I first thought we were going to do the rivalry thing, which was why I was so excited to get it started at first. What we've done so far is just the same old event-type thing but with fixed teams. That wasn't at all how I envisioned it, and the reason I'm not very enthusiastic about the rivalry anymore. Maybe we could do rivalry wars, which would be separate from community wars and more hardcore. Though I can't see that happening anytime soon because we have so few people, let alone people who'd actually enjoy playing like that.

Scott: Ask Bela if he'd be willing to come after he gets back. I'd like to get an idea of how many people are coming pretty soon, so I can make reservations and everything.

It's time to get serious.

[marauder]

I would have been cool with 1 long rivalry round at Saint Johns woods. Not so sure other venues are as conducive to that. You need a good bit of terrain variation, especially some good areas with lots of thick terrain.

I'm seriously liking the current schedule. Chaos 1hk free for all? Very cool. Please PM me what guns you plan on putting out there for people to get, I would love to know. Wish I could come and bring my XP Pool Pumper Blaster. Lots of XP rounds.

[HBWW]

I just threw out whatever came to mind. 1-flag CTF (I'm talking about the Assault variation, not the flag-in-the-middle) is still similar to 2-flag, in the sense that whichever team has the fastest players is going to have that distinct advantage. Perhaps rivalries should stick more to traditional games, but I agree that we need enough room to experiment. If it's just 2-3 games a day that aren't 1HS/1HK/CTF, I think that works.

You can add me to the attendance list, but it's not official until I book that flight. =p I hope to be able to do so by the end of this week.

[SEAL]

I don't know if St. John's Woods is big enough for the type of fighting that I want to do. Although I guess we don't have that many people now, so it'd probably work. I know a few places that would work well for it if we ever got the amount of people I want (like 20vs20 or so). As for the guns in the chaos round, I don't really know yet. I'm probably going to stick a bunch of unique stuff in there, along with other equipment. I likely won't use boxes because I don't have many; I'll just scatter the guns and equipment around however I see fit. It will have to be set up on Sunday morning when everyone's eating breakfast (I'll eat quickly).

So here is a list of each game in detail (referring to the schedule). As you can see, it's not finished yet. Maybe some of you can give input and help finalize some things. In particular, I would like help with Soak 'n' Destroy since I'm still not entirely sure how to set it up. Most of this will be ironed out by more trips to Dug Hill.

Friday:

Arrival time-nightfall:
Self-explanitory.

Nightfall:
OHK will be of the standard variety, starting points TBD; time limit will be 20-30 minutes. Zombies will also be standard, with one starting zombie. Starting zombie must have weak blaster, and the humans must start away from each other. If a zombie is hit, they must freeze for 30 seconds, and if a human gets hit, they must also freeze for 30 seconds before becoming a zombie. Game ends when everyone becomes infected.

Saturday:

8:00-9:00:
Self-explanitory.

9:00-10:30:
Same style OHK as the first round of '11. Starting points are on trail near far west entrance (near old tires), and on trail intersection near Junkyard. Game ends when one team is eliminated, but if time limit is reached before this occurs, game will be called and decided on points.

10:40-11:00:
Continuation of the classic Thunder Gulch rounds. As stated in the schedule, if the OHK round ends at least 20 minutes early, there will be two rounds where teams switch sides. Starting/Spawn points are on each side of the gulch, as per custom. There is no respawn time; respawning is done by touching the spawn point/writing down the name of who killed you. Players cannot wander more than ~200 feet from the fighting area.

11:20-12:20:
Each team starts with 5 flags at their base. Flag locations must be made clear to each team; any attempt to hide flags by either team will result in the ejection of the offender from the game. Bases are in the center of Thunder Gulch and near the Island in Lost Chasm, with respawn points on the sides away from the fighting. Respawn time is 1 minute. Team with the most flags at the end of the match wins. Players cannot carry more than 1 flag each.

12:25-12:55:
Self-explanitory.

13:00-13:30:
Standard half-hour OHK. Teams start on the trail near the far west entrance (near tires) and in a clearing near a large fallen tree (on the opposite side of the pine forest vs. the former). Players cannot wander more than ~100 feet from the edge of the Pine Forest. As with the first OHK, if the time limit is reached before one team is elminated, the round ends and is decided by points.

13:40-15:40:
Standard long-distance OHS. Starting points are on either end of Mirror Forest (exact locations TBD). Respawning must be done behind your team, and away from the action (no spawn points). Respawn time is 2 minutes. If an entire team is wiped out, both teams are encouraged to spread apart and regroup.

16:00-17:00:
There are 5 capture points layed out in a linear fashion, which each team can claim. Points are, from west to east: TBD, small clearing at west end of the Narrows, flat section in Narrows, boulder near the middle swamp, and fallen tree in fern area. Teams start on each end; at the start of the round, each point is neutral, and must be captured. There will be a flag at each location; team possesion is defined by either flag up or flag down (neutral points simply have the flag in its starting location). Points must be claimed in order; a team cannot send someone all the way around to capture points behind enemy lines. Respawning takes places at the point behind the last one captured (for example, if you've captured points up to #4, you can spawn at #3), and there is no respawn time. If a team only has one captured point, they must walk ~100 feet away from said point to respawn, for a time of 1 minute. If a team captures all points, the game goes into sudden death, and it becomes OHK for them because they have nowhere left to respawn. If the team recaptures the point, any who are eliminated may come back into the game. The winner is the team who has the most points captured, but a team can also win by capturing all points an eliminating the entire opposition.

17:15-17:35:
Standard 20-minute OHS. Starting/Spawn points are on one of the hills flanking the trail (where we fought the last round at '12), and near the concrete block in the middle of the trail leading towards the dump. No respawn time. Players are not encouraged to wander more than ~200 feet from the fighting area.

17:45-18:00:
Self-explanitory.

18:15-19:15:
Self-explanitory.

19:15-20:15:
Self-explanitory.

20:30-21:30:
Standard OHS. Starting/Spawn points TBD.

21:30-whenever:
OHS simply becomes OHK with no transition. Standard rules.

After "whenever":
Self-explanitory. Bed time before 23:00 is strongly recommended.

Sunday:

8:00-9:00:
Self-explanitory.

9:15-9:45:
Similar to the round at MOAB, but a free-for-all and OHK. Players all start unarmed and at equal distances from a clearing strewn with various water weaponry. Uses standard OHK rules.

9:50-10:20:
Standard 2-flag CTF. Bases are on each side of Thunder Gulch (likely a different area from where we do OHS), with respawn points ~100 feet back. Respawn time is 1 minute. Once again, both teams must be aware of each flag's location.

10:25-10:40:
Typical HTL. Defense cannot leave mound. Spawn point for offense is down the road somewhere (TBD), with respawn time of 30 seconds.

10:55-11:10:
Same as above; side switch.

11:25-11:55:
Symmetrical SnD. Details TBD.

12:00-12:30:
Self-explanitory.

12:45-13:45:
Standard OHS. Starting points are on each end of Thunder Gulch. No spawn points; players must simply stand away from the action behind their team's lines for 2 minutes. Players cannot wander more than ~100 feet from the top of each side.

14:00-14:30:
Each team has a VIP. While he/she is still in the game, everyone on the team has unlimited lives. The VIP only has one life, if he/she is eliminated, everyone on the team is now subject to elimination. While a team's VIP is still in play, everyone on it must respawn by standing away from the action for 1 minute.

14:30-15:00:
We set up obejctive points and go over everything.

15:00-18:00:
Hoo, boy. Details TBD.

18:15-19:15:
Self-explanitory.

19:15-20:15:
Self-explanitory.

20:30-21:00:
If a player is hit, he/she must respawn for 30 seconds before joining the other team. The game ends when everybody is on one team.

21:15-22:00:
Similar to Zombies. There is a hunting team and a hiding team (for lack of a better term); the former should have half the amount as the latter. The hiding team is given a 5-minute head start to go hide. If someone on the hiding team is hit, they join the hunting team. If someone on the hunting team gets hit, they have to respawn for 1 minute away from the action. The hunting team starts at a TBD location (perhaps a campsite), and the hiding team can go wherever to start. Hunting team wins if everyone who's hidden gets hit, and the hiding team wins if they still have at least one player when time is up.

After 22:00:
Self-explanitory. Bedtime restrictions are no longer really necessary, since there will likely be no fighting the next day. (Though it is still recommended for those who have long drives ahead.)

Monday:

End of war. It's possible that rounds will be held (likely just OHK or OHS), but only if people can wake up early enough and aren't tired from the weekend's fighting. Any rounds would be held at Wilson campground.

Maybe we should all get on Skype/AIM/Facebook and discuss this more thoroughly. I won't have much time today, but I can probably do it tomorrow.

[HBWW]

Is it safe to assume that all zombies must have weak blasters? Kind of defeats the point of the "zombie" if they don't. At the same time, we have to balance out the rate of fire and other factors somehow.

Multi-stage objective: It's really a matter of people actually wanting to play more than anything else. If we can play the smaller bits of multi-stage objective (i.e. each phase), we can play the whole thing. Best run up some Assault/1-sided SnD first, since they are the core building blocks of large scale, multi-stage objective games. Have to keep in mind that, a few spawn points, a time limit, and Container/Attack Targets are apparently too complicated for some people (even if it means you don't have to, you know, count your damn kills). Anyway, best get this game setup and objectives/spawn points mapped out ASAP so we can discuss if we're going to go with this. The real trouble of a game of this scale is balancing it out to be fun with water warfare itself. Objectives should be do-able but challenging. Each phase should progressively become tougher to complete. It doesn't have to be balanced perfectly, but it's trickier than just setting up a single symmetrical/asymmetrical CTF or SnD game. If this multi-stage game will be your only exception to otherwise playing only symmetrical games, it will be trickier since we won't have any proven/tested 1-sided SnD/CTF setup to work off of.

If we can all agree on a few factors, like setting it up to 3 phases, we can move things along quicker. What kind of objectives do we want at each phase? Spawn rules/locations? Here's an idea:

> Attackers spawn at a safe zone and are invincible whenever they're in this zone and are in play. Defenders spawn near their objective(s) close to shooting range, no more than ~60ft away. They may spawn at any objective that hasn't been captured. All spawns require 1 minute.
> Attackers' safe zone expands to include the objectives they captured, whenever they do so. Only one set of objectives may be captured in each phase. (You cannot run up and attack phase 3's objective when the game is in phase 1, duh.)
> Phase 1: 2 Attack Targets (could be as simple as knocking over a water bottle sitting on something). Phase 2: 2 Container Targets. Phase 3: 1 flag or large Container Target. (i.e. Bucket.)
> All objectives must be captured within the time limit to advance to next phase, otherwise the game ends. Team that captures more objectives during their attacking turn wins. If tied, team that captured objectives faster (if we can tell) wins.
> Intermission/pauses between phases is optional, but shouldn't be necessary.

Alternatively, all objectives can simply be a single large Container Target, say a bucket. This simplifies things but relies on the environment more to provide game variation.

At any given phase, the distance between the attackers' safe zone and the defenders' objectives should be at least 200 feet apart.

Anyway, thoughts? Try to be a bit more in-depth than "it's too complicated", because:
- 3 objective sets and phases, one set per phase attacked at a time
- Spawn only at the objectives your team owns, 1 minute time to spawn
- Each phase has a time limit to capture all objectives

is pretty simple to me.

As for Domination, I'm not 100% fond of your setup since it keeps things too limited. I think part of the point of having multiple objectives around is to be able to pick the order where you want to start. Split up the team to take the easy objectives, send your fast guys to attack the easy ones of the enemy team, and slow them down. Strategies like that become impossible in this case. In addition, how will the objectives take time to capture? Hourglass? As for 1HK from after loosing all objectives, I've considered this for many variations of gametypes (for example, in VIP), but it has been disagreed on often due to the same kinds of issues with regular 1HK. That said, I'd be more than willing to try that out for a game. We don't want to do 1HK too much IMO, but mixing it in (since I haven't even done it in a community war yet) would be nice.

Anyway, I think this is fair. We're only running into experimental games once a day: the Domination game for Saturday, and the multi-objective game for Sunday. (Which can be called a number of names: Some call it Invasion, Rush, or Overrun, I listed it as Breakthrough on HBWW.) Chaos and HTL have all been done many times, and the way SEAL wants to setup SnD is basically the same as CTF with different objectives at each end of the field.

Edit: In addition to finalizing the rules/setup here and getting them down, we need to get feedback from others on what they'll play. In other words, we don't want to see people ignoring the schedule here and then complaining or refusing to play a certain game during the weekend.

[SEAL]

Well the starting zombie has a weak blaster because he/she is invincible. The only problem I see is that humans who become zombies would still have whatever blasters they started with (it wouldn't really make sense to force them to switch weapons, and we don't have that many weak blasters anyway). I don't know what we'll end up doing (I'm just going with the same rules that we had at Hydropocalypse), but we can discuss it when the time comes. Unlike the other rounds, it's not a really big deal and we can make changes on spot without a problem.

I will take your suggestions for the multi-stage game (how does the name "Campaign" sound?) into consideration, but I likely won't finalize things for it until I can get to Dug Hill again to start planning. This is really the only big/more complex experimental game; the rest are fairly straightforward, with the possible exception of Domination or SnD, but I don't think it'll be a big deal as long as I'm directing things.

Domination is set up that way because of how the playing area is. The objectives won't take time to capture, and I don't see why they would need to. I don't have any problem with doing OHK; anyone who's eliminated can simply film and/or take pictures. I am going to be carrying a camera with me at all times just in case (though I don't plan on being eliminated).

I'm still not sure how to do SnD though. I kind of want the targets to be separate from the bases due to the playing area. I'll try to figure everything out by next week. So far things are looking good.

Update: There is now a Facebook event page for this.

[HBWW]

Makes sense: alpha stays invulnerable and rest are 1H.

I would reserve campaign as a term for story-driven scenario games, but it seems that very few people outside the airsoft/paintball community would be interested in such games? Anyway, others seem to like the term Invasion. Heck, we could even refer to it simply as Multi-Stage Assault.

SnD is pretty straightforward. We can separate the spawn areas from the objectives in SnD, or we can put out longer spawn time limits. In addition, we can choose whether to allow 1HS style spawning or not. Domination is more complicated, manageable IMO but possibly not for others. Do have to remember what's allowed to be captured and what isn't, as well as the spawning exception for when only one objective is owned.

[marauder]

I think a big reason why some of us aren't interested in story-driven games at the moment is we are so starved for a water war that we don't want to take the time to set it up or even to understand it. You can always find a paintball game. Every week in most areas, perhaps even every day if you really look. That's definitely not the case with us.

[HBWW]

Need to confirm for sure who's picking me up from the airport. Will pay for tolls and gas (as in, the tolls and gas expenses caused from having to pick me up, not for your whole trip!). The airport will most likely be LaGuardia. Good news on the times I fly there and back: I have Friday and Monday off work on that weekend. (Will be making that up; I'm paid on salary and the boss is very lenient on this whole thing.)

Not sure on NYC's evening traffic, I'm going to guess before 3pm or after 7pm? In which case I can take it early and arrive at NY at:
12:10pm (American)
1:56pm (Delta)
2:45pm (American)

Or for the evening:
7:14pm (Delta)
9:10pm (American)

I don't want to arrive any later than that.

Getting back home on Monday, I have the following (good) times for getting on the plane to Detroit, targeting the 11am to afternoon time frame:
12:50pm (Delta, $29 more)
1:00pm (American)
2:40pm (Delta)
4:30pm (American, traffic won't be too bad as long as I get to airport by 3:30 or 4.)
4:30:pm (Delta, $29 more)


So, tl;dr: need to talk to DX or whoever's picking me up. Will edit this post accordingly.

Update: Returning home at 4:30pm, not sure which yet, but I have a ride home from there. Right now I'm figuring out when I can get a ride to the airport, will likely try to pick an earlier time if possible; more time for the weekend.

Edit: It's booked! I will arrive at the LGA airport at 2:45pm on Friday and the flight departs Monday at 4:30pm, flying with American.

[DX]

What is the plan for campsite reservations? I looked at Reserve America and most of Wilson's sites have not yet been taken. I would recommend reserving sites along the outer Loop C area, like 58, 60, 62, 64, 66, 68, or 70. This is what we did in 2011, those sites are large and away from most of the other people. Up to 6 people can share the same site, but only 2 cars.

[scottthewaterwarrior]

Been busy for a while, but figured I'd check back in before too much time went by...

Scott: Ask Bela if he'd be willing to come after he gets back. I'd like to get an idea of how many people are coming pretty soon, so I can make reservations and everything.

It's time to get serious.

I have asked him, he is going to be getting back that Thursday. He's coming from halfway around the world and doesn't even know what time on Thursday he will be getting back (he leaves on the 15th so hopefully he can figure out when he will get back before then). Even if he does get back in time to pack, he may be too tired to come.
At this rate it is probably 50/50 if he comes so don't worry about it too much. He will be staying in a tent with my anyway so as long as there is room for me there will be room for him.

Speaking of which, what are CA99's plans? Is he going to be sleeping in a tent with us or staying in a hotel? If it is the latter he could probably book the same one as my dad and then he would have a ride.

And I have the perfect gun for the "unusual blasters" round, Mwwa-Ha-Ha-ha! <- unfortunantly there is no smilly for it, oh well, guess you guys will just have to wait and see!

[HBWW]

You don't have the perfect gun for the "unusual blasters" round unless you have an Oozinator. I'd mail mine over, but I can't fix the stupid thing. (PR pump is extremely stiff, so it's difficult to build up enough pressure to shoot decently. (That's what she said.))

But hey, if it's a Backfire, XP 85 Triple Shot, or XP 90 Pulse Fire, that's cool too. I haven't seen enough goofy XP's.

I don't know exactly what I'll do yet. Right now I'm just assuming there will be enough tent space and sleeping bags, but if there aren't, I can try to get a hotel last minute and hope the hotel(s) you're at or near isn't/aren't booked.