Neocolours

Altador Cup 2012 SIGNUPS are here! I know a bunch of us are loyal to many different teams. I think i've firmly decided i'm Meridellian.

Also, practice has started. Apparently they made ANOTHER update to the controls. I still stink at it, but maybe i'll figure it out in time to make some winning scores.

I'm surprised nobody had mentioned the recent team spotlights leading up to it.

I've gone for Shenkuu (again) for the sixth time, according to the message when I signed up. How's that for loyalty/boringness?

We've traded Foltaggio, our Mynci forward with no depth-perception, to Altador in exchange for Timu, a Lupe defender. So we now have one attacking player and three in defence. Xana DiLanche's listed weaknesses still include 'Inexperience', despite having played for Shenkuu since the very beginning.

I haven't tried the new controls for YYB yet (I understand you can use the mouse again, yay!). There is a major change to the tournament format this year. From what I can gather the teams are being split into three groups, the teams will then play each other within the group for six days. Teams will then be awarded points based on their standing in the group table, the groups will then be re-drawn randomly and another six-day round of group play will take place, with more points awarded at the end (it sounds like the amount of points awarded goes up every round). There will be three of these rounds in total, and no finals. The winner is the team with the highest points total. If there's a tie on points I guess they've got some cunning way of sorting that out.

This means the whole thing will be 24 days long (from 1st June - 24th June) which should help to reduce burn-out, although there are no 'rest days' between rounds.

I signed up for Roo Island for the sixth year in a row. I like the controls this year a lot better than I did last year -- the mouse is easier for me to use, and I like how holding down the left button builds up power so we can throw the ball farther. I played a practice game and won 4-2, so once I play a bit more I should be able to do better. I'll probably actually participate this year (I only played one game last year; I hated the controls THAT much).

I've joined Haunted Woods for the third (I think) year in a row. I like the game controls this time - the power-ups are very helpful and the arrow telling you what direction the YYB will go is a nice touch. I haven't had any problems with my players automatically switching.

I've played a few practice games and my best score was 6:0. I still have to remember how to shoot the Darigan YYB though.

I joined Maraqua again.

I also got 100 NC for free when I signed up, is that standard or part of my "You've been playing for 6 years!" reward?

I always join Krawk Island. Apparently for 5 years of dedicated play I get a fountain and 100NC.

This is the first time I've participated in the Altador Cup (I went for Terror Mountain) and I got 100 free NC too.

EDIT: My most recent practice games of Yooyuball ended with 7 - 1 and 6 - 0. Gotta be an improvement on 1 - 3.
ANOTHER EDIT: Just got 8 - 1. Yay.

Decided to go full circle and joined my original team Terror Mountain (I cheated on TM with Altador, Darigan, Moltara and HW over the years).
Great to hear they returned the mouse option for all those who couldn't use keyboard due to medical reason or just preferred mouse.

I expect I'll get bored with YYB before the end of first week as usual, but it's always fun to see how it all plays out.

Joined Roo Island again for the 6th straight year

Controls definitely seemed better than last year's (like Cranberry, I hated the controls so much that I didn't participate). I'm sure a guide will help with scoring. My first and only game was a 3-3 tie

zebru wrote:Decided to go full circle and joined my original team Terror Mountain (I cheated on TM with Altador, Darigan, Moltara and HW over the years).

Yay, another Terror Mountain supporter! *hugs*

I joined Darigan, like I do every year, but isn't this year 7? Everyone I see keeps saying for the 6th year. Or maybe I'm just confused.

I'm hoping to have more time to play this year. Last year I only got to level 15 after being all-star for 3 years. This year I'm trying to save some money to go on vacation in July, so hopefully I'll be home more and ready to play.

I got the prize for six years of loyalty, except this is only my third year for Kreludor. I've cycled through TM and RI, too, in my time.

So yes. The return of mouse controls are very welcome. I played one or two games last year - I hated the keyboard controls. Regardless, I still prefer the older YYB. The 'new' version still feels a bit clunky - when I'm trying to score, I just kind of wildly aim at the goal with little strategy. My success rate is surprisingly high! I just played my first game and managed to win 9 - 1. I can't see myself playing much, though. I'm still busy with uni. And outside of that and social life, I'm busy playing Diablo.

For the seventh year in a row I'm playing again for... Darigan (who would have guessed. )

Has anyone been following the cup this year? The bracket system has been horrendous and the standings are a joke. I really feel TNT has dropped the ball on it, especially as they're being so closed about how positions are calculated. The biggest farce, imo, has been Roo Island sweeping Haunted Woods on the first day of the new bracket and standing below them in the ranks. Haunted Woods ended up with two draws and a win at the end of the bracket - yet still were above Shenkuu and Roo Island. Kreludor look like they've got the win secured, but it feels like a bit of a cheat, despite very strong play from them this year, as the the standings are so random.

Well, the team I've been supporting this past couple of weeks have never been considered the strongest in the competition, but any limited hopes of doing well in the tournament have now been dashed by a performance that was sub-par and rather unexpected even by their low expectations.

...and in the Altador Cup I've been supporting Shenkuu :-P


Seriously, it's genuinely demoralising to see your team at, or adjacent to, the bottom of the bracket every single day from day 1. It's been especially bad this year, I don't know if that's solely due to the bracket system and its opaque ranking system. Either way, I've not had a lot of incentive to play other than to reach my personal target of Rank 2 (67 YYB wins).

(Incidentally I noticed that to get All Star would require 1334 YYB wins which, assuming an average game time of 3 minutes, would take just under 67 hours of continuous play. If I worked overtime for 67 hours I could get Premium for more than 15 years.)