Date: Wed, 22 Oct 1997 20:31:33 +0100
From: Tournament Headquarters  (by way of Robert F. Heeter)
Subject: W2WT: Tournament News 22-Oct-97 (B)

Greetings, Warlords!

Round A is going very well.  After two weeks, the average game is
already well into Turn 3, and except for two games that got off to a
slow start due to missing players, all the games are moving nicely.
It goes without saying that the moderators thank you for playing
so efficiently and letting them focus on their own games!

I do want to clarify two relatively minor things for everyone:

(1) We ask that you do not rename any cities.  Everyone will read
the results of everyone else's games at the end of the round,
especially the prize judges, and it's easier to understand what
happened if the locations in each game all have the same names.

(2) Now that these games are being officially scored for prizes,
diplomacy and role-playing are more important.  We want the
Remailer to archive messages where they belong, so everyone can
read about each game afterwards.  Some players are sending messages
incorrectly, and they are not being archived by the Remailer.
This makes things confusing for everyone.  It also makes it
difficult for everyone in your game to win a role-playing prize.
Plus it's a rules error.  Also, the "shortcut" method is becoming
increasingly incompatible with MIME-based email, and it is often
such a hassle to decode such messages that it ends up costing players
a lot more time than it saves.  Elam will be disabling the shortcut
in the Remailer soon, so he can investigate new and improved ways of
making that work in the future.

So we are asking everyone to follow these guidelines for tournament email:

* All diplomatic messages and turn reports should now be "archive" messages.

* All official gamefiles should be "gamefile" messages.
  (Unless you are re-sending a gamefile due to a transmission error,
   in which case use a "noarchive" message so the Remailer isn't confused.)

* If you have been using the "shortcut" method, please switch.
  Turn reports -> "archive" messages; gamefiles -> "gamefile" messages.

  If we do this, you will never need to read "gamefile" messages,
  moderators know that all the important discussions are in the "query"
  and "archive" messages, and the Remailer archives everything where it
  belongs.  Text sent with a "gamefile" message is not archived at all.

* If you're not sure how to send a particular message, use this guide:

   If it's a message whose contents belong:
    - in the realm of the game...  ...then it's a diplomatic "archive" message
    - in the tournament/rules area ...  then it's a "query" to the moderator
    - in the real world only ...  ... then it should be a "noarchive" message
    - a gamefile for the next player...   ...then it's a "gamefile" message

   Or you can think about it like this:
    - If it has to do with characters/events *in the game* -> archive message
    - If it's about *how the game or tournament is played* -> query message
    - If it's *unrelated to the game* -> noarchive message
    - If it's a *gamefile* -> gamefile message

* If you have questions that come up while you take your turn, it's
  best if you keep those questions *out* of the Turn Report, and send
  them separately as a Query.  The moderators read all query messages,
  but sometimes they only skim Turn Reports, so they might miss a question
  unless it's in a query message.

* Remember that the best individual role-play in this round
  gets a prize from SSG!  (A free game, in fact!)

* Also remember that the four players in the game with the most
  entertaining overall history get prizes from SSG as well!
  (Also free games.)

I hope everyone is having lots of fun!

"Be killing you soon..."  (unofficial motto of the tournament playtesters)

-- Bob


P.S. We strongly recommend that you find out what other
games your Round A opponents have been in, and use the Remailer's
online game histories to study how your opponents play.  If some of
your opponents are experienced players, it can help you improve your
chances a lot if you know something about how they play.  We will
soon put up a list of all the past game assignments (Alias, game
name, and side played) for everyone to use as a reference.