Hey all,

I added a new feature to the site today. When you go to the games page, you'll notice a new section labeled "Start a tournament someone else created". (I made it a bright blue to stand out... eventually I'll put it back to less 'in your face' color, but I wanted people to notice it)

If you click on the button, you'll enter a new section of the site. Here you will see every official tournament ever created either by me or by you guys (only official tournaments, not every tournament ever created).

By default it shows you only the ones that had received 5 or more votes and it sorts it by highest rated first. There is a link on that page to show all the tournaments regardless of the number of votes it received.

From this screen you'll be able to start any tournament you wish... even if you didn't make it. If you start a tournament someone else created, it will show on the tournament screen who created it as well as who started it.

All tournaments now only cost a flat rate of 600 geek points.

I'm really hoping this also encourages people to thumb up/down and rate tournaments. Doing so will add more to this list... and the higher they are rated, the closer to the first page they will be.

Hope you all like the new feature. Please let me know of any bugs or issues you find.

Thanks :)

Yay ... like the idea very much :)

Could you install a possible so you only see the eligible tournaments or dye the "start"-button ?

I'm not sure what you mean by eligible tournaments.... cause you can start any of them (as long as you have 600 GP)

Great idea. It will boost the number of tournaments too... I hope.
Can I just ask for one practical adjustment? You choose a page, scroll down, don't find what you're looking for and then have to scroll up again for the next page.
Please add (1) a sorting method and (2) the option to switch pages also on the bottom of the page.
Thanks!
PS (edit) whilst I'm at it, if everything costs 600 then there is no need to use a column on the cost; it could be on top of the table in a single line... The free space could then be used by an yes/no indicator if you could participate in the tournament. I see a lot of "old" ones I really liked, my fingers are itching, but I know my level is to high to play it... so why would I start it?
Thanks again :^D

Nice! I'll start exploring immediately, Captain.

Question - I saw a couple of maps I'd like to play, I saw that they were "currently running" but on the list of games I couldn't find them. So, how do you join one currently running? Could they be for levels higher then me, like, I'm not eligible? But I'm level 76 so I think I'd be eligible.

* Never mind. My goof, I unchecked "show eligible only" and I see that I am not eligible for the one I was looking at. :-/

I like the feature, though!

@ Sparticus

Mainstream & chaosinmotion describe the same prob that i had (in a better way - shame on me :P)

We can start tournaments which we cant play due the levellimitation. Therefor i suggest to dye the "start-tournament"-button red or sth

Ok, which would you rather....

1.) Have the page show you whether or not you can enter that tournament if started..

2.) I just make it so that all tournaments started from that page have the level restriction removed... therefore you'd be able to enter any tournament you start

3.) Add a way that you can set the level range when starting it

4.) Something else...


I'll also add in the option to switch pages on the top and bottom

One cool thing would be if a tournament says "Already running" that you can go intantly to its view-page.
The idea is that you can click the "Already running" Text, and go to this page: http://www.beatthegeek.com/games/TowerDefence/tournamentResults.asp?tournid=21605

@Sparticus: Option 1 or 3 for me, please - with a strong preference for 3.
@njulian: I agree

I like option 2, you can play a tourney you start. However, that may confuse some people on the regular game menu if it looks like it should cut off higher levels, but higher levels are playing. Perhaps games that were started by popular demand (600 gp) could be color coded for "all levels"

Ok, spent the last 14 hours working on all the changes you requested.... hopefully they were what you wanted :)

Changes I made :

1.) You can now change the page from the top or the bottom of the list (requested by MainstreaM)

2.) You can now sort some of the columns (ie. Game Description, Created by, Map Design Rating, and Overall Fun Factor). Many of the other columns don't make sense to sort... and sorting the last column so you can see all the running tournaments would be nice, but the way it's set up would be hard to do). (requested by MainstreaM)

3.) Clicking on "Already Running" will bring you to that running tournament (requested by njulian and MainstreaM)

4.) And last but not least (since it took by far the most time to develop) You can now specify the level restrictions when starting a tournament. After you click "Start Tournament" a new info box will appear asking you the level restrictions (if any) for your tournament. So, regardless of what the tournament was originally set up to be, it will use your settings. (requested by many)

Thanks everyone for all the suggestions!

Let me know if there are any issues :)

I've found a bug with the new level restrictions.
The map has no restriction at all if
- you set a minimum level but no maximum (tried it with 5 and 500)
- The minimum restriction is greather than the maximum
- the maximum is zero

However, it works if
- the maximum is greather then the minimum (the 'normal' case)
- you set only a maximum but no minimum OR set the minimum to 0 manually
- minimum and maximum are equivalent


I guess I tried every case now. and I hope it's easy to fix the last issues.

Thanks for checking all that njulian :)

Some of those bugs you reported were intentional... and some need fixing. I'll hopefully fix them this week. :)