Thanks!

Hello,

When i try to create a chainbound event in GEM,it says chainbound is disabled cause you have no allotment,but i have received and email saying that i got allotment for chainbound events.

What should i do?



On 4/1/2019 at 6:30 AM, Panagw said:

Hello,

When i try to create a chainbound event in GEM,it says chainbound is disabled cause you have no allotment,but i have received and email saying that i got allotment for chainbound events.

What should i do?



First, make sure that you are not just outside of the 24 hour window. It might be that you just cannot see them yet in the GEM Client. Go into your account using your favorite browser and make sure that the allotments are there and that you have an event defined out of the allotments you were awarded. If it is there and more than 24 hours in the future, that is why it is not showing up in the GEM Client (to help make sure that you do not accidently choose the wrong allotment).

If it is not there, well, this might be one of those times to change the Crucible rather than let it change you. I would send an email saying that you will turn up like a Bad Penny until it is right by pinging Organized Play at: [email protected]  

Hope that helps!

Jeff Brower   
GEM Client Lead

It's almost like there needs to be a brief video made for the use of GEM.

I also suggest that the software uses a self-updating check when it is run, I was talking to a fellow in a store and he was complaining about the seeding bug that was fixed some time ago. The people running the tournaments around here are generally not aware that there are software updates available.

On 4/5/2019 at 6:11 PM, Amanal said:

It's almost like there needs to be a brief video made for the use of GEM.

I also suggest that the software uses a self-updating check when it is run, I was talking to a fellow in a store and he was complaining about the seeding bug that was fixed some time ago. The people running the tournaments around here are generally not aware that there are software updates available.

I hope that these videos might help those who need help creating the accounts and using GEM, but I have considered doing some videos myself once things slow down - I just keep adding so many new features that finding time is a struggle right now. My hope is that this forum is used by those of you who have figured it out to help those who could benefit from that experience. Please, everyone, feel free to help each other!

One of the new features I added was an update check. Of course you have to update to get that version.....

Jeff Brower   
GEM Client Lead

Hi Jeff!

The GEM software is working well for us so far, but we ran into a hitch the other night. We had 8 players sign up and we started the tournament. But soon after, another family shows up and we had four new players show up. Thankfully, we were able to add them into the event (since no matches started) and we were able to pair them up with each other. However, when we got to the end of round 3, the tournament was declared finished. The GEM was already locked into three rounds of swiss, without taking into account and adjusting for the additional players. I'm sure this was just an oversight, and will be hoping this will be addressed in a later update. That being said, I just wanted to report this to your attention, and look forward to the continued refinement of this phenomenally fun game!

3 hours ago, kenkakuknight said:

Hi Jeff!

The GEM software is working well for us so far, but we ran into a hitch the other night. We had 8 players sign up and we started the tournament. But soon after, another family shows up and we had four new players show up. Thankfully, we were able to add them into the event (since no matches started) and we were able to pair them up with each other. However, when we got to the end of round 3, the tournament was declared finished. The GEM was already locked into three rounds of swiss, without taking into account and adjusting for the additional players. I'm sure this was just an oversight, and will be hoping this will be addressed in a later update. That being said, I just wanted to report this to your attention, and look forward to the continued refinement of this phenomenally fun game!

Glad that GEM is working so well for you! The next release is even better!

I am probably going to blow your mind right now. I did that on purpose.

Here's the thing, the tournament needs to be frozen when you start. At that moment we have to set the number of rounds, the presence of a top cut and the number of players that the top cut will contain. We are, in effect, creating a contract with the players for what their tournament will look like. They know that the number of wins they need, the number of rounds they will play, the strength of schedule and the extended strength of schedule will all be consistent round to round. We use these elements to fairly pair every round and to select the players that make it into top cut. If we change all of these things from round to round as players are added we change the fairness over and over as people get added to the event. And what of drops? If we are increasing rounds when people add, do we reduce the rounds when people drop? Or are DQ'ed? Does top cut disappear? Double in size? Both? How many players might have to drop and go home or to work if late players add to the number of rounds, especially in best of 3? Is is OK to have someone add in the very last round and add more rounds (and potentially hours of play) that no one expected? Where do you draw the line?

That may not be your only surprise. I left other things out on purpose too.

You see, the aspiration of great tournament software, in my opinion, should be to guarantee a flat and level playing field for fair play - with no surprises and a predictable game environment no matter where a player plays on the planet - I seek the highest in tournament integrity and consistency. Note that you also do not see manual pairings in GEM, because even if it never occurs, any player with a bad matchup might wonder if their pairing was arranged on purpose (or wonder why the Orgainizer's child or friend got such a great matchup that same round). You will not see the ability to re-pair over and over and over until the operator sees the pairing they like for the same reason -- if anyone thinks for a moment that the Tournament Organizer (or GEM Operator) can manipulate any pairings or results, tournament integrity itself becomes questioned everywhere. Not on my watch!

I guess what I am saying is this: Some of the things that we might be used to seeing in other game software may never be a part of GEM because I want GEM to be the gold standard of consistent, predictable and fair tournament software - powerful, yet deceptively simple to use.

Make sense? I hope so, and I hope you agree. Do me a favor though -- keep holding my foot to the fire and making those suggestions for improvements. The community is my best resource! Thanks also for the opportunity for me to climb up on my soapbox and make a speech as a response. I want everyone to understand why GEM is what it is and why we can all be proud of the game and the tools that we use to run it.

Jeff Brower   
GEM Client Lead

" Note  that you also   do not see manual pairings in GEM, because even if it never occurs, any player with a bad matchup might wonder if their pairing was arranged on purpose (or wonder why the Orgainizer's child or friend got such a great matchup that same round  ). You will  not see the ability to re-pair over and over and over until the operator sees the pairing they like for the same reason -- if anyone thinks for a moment that the Tournament Organizer (or GEM Operator  ) can manipulate   any   pairings  or results, tournament integrity itself becomes questioned  everywhere  . Not on my watch! "

Woooboy. I'm sorry, but this is not a feature. And I am amazed that you think it is.

I'm not sure where your tournament experience comes from, but here in the real world most stores (the *vast* majority) have integrity and follow the rules. More and more I see "features" in this software that seem to be in place only to prevent shenanigans, when that is not the job of the software, that is the job of the store and the TO. If the store is running dirty tournaments, the players will find out. Quickly.

Meanwhile, those of us with integrity who need to troubleshoot legitimate mistakes or odd occurrences (which happen all the time) are stuck staring between a rigid piece of software and the players who just want to play cards and wondering how to turn a bad situation around.

Yes, training helps. But for crying out loud did you poll ANY retailers who run regular tournaments before you started coding? Do you have a team of developers or is it just you and how you personally think it should be done?

" Some of the things that we might be used to seeing in other game software may never be a part of GEM because I want GEM to be the gold standard of consistent, predictable and fair tournament   software - powerful, yet deceptively simple to use."

I'm sorry, but you are a long way from that.

1 hour ago, I'm Board Games & Family Fun said:

" Note  that you also   do not see manual pairings in GEM, because even if it never occurs, any player with a bad matchup might wonder if their pairing was arranged on purpose (or wonder why the Orgainizer's child or friend got such a great matchup that same round  ). You will  not see the ability to re-pair over and over and over until the operator sees the pairing they like for the same reason -- if anyone thinks for a moment that the Tournament Organizer (or GEM Operator  ) can manipulate   any   pairings  or results, tournament integrity itself becomes questioned  everywhere  . Not on my watch! "

Woooboy. I'm sorry, but this is not a feature. And I am amazed that you think it is.

I'm not sure where your tournament experience comes from, but here in the real world most stores (the *vast* majority) have integrity and follow the rules. More and more I see "features" in this software that seem to be in place only to prevent shenanigans, when that is not the job of the software, that is the job of the store and the TO. If the store is running dirty tournaments, the players will find out. Quickly.

Meanwhile, those of us with integrity who need to troubleshoot legitimate mistakes or odd occurrences (which happen all the time) are stuck staring between a rigid piece of software and the players who just want to play cards and wondering how to turn a bad situation around.

Yes, training helps. But for crying out loud did you poll ANY retailers who run regular tournaments before you started coding? Do you have a team of developers or is it just you and how you personally think it should be done?

" Some of the things that we might be used to seeing in other game software may never be a part of GEM because I want GEM to be the gold standard of consistent, predictable and fair tournament   software - powerful, yet deceptively simple to use."

I'm sorry, but you are a long way from that.

I am truly amazed that anyone does not think that maintaining tournament integrity should be an important feature of tournament software. This year will mark 14 years of organizing and managing tournament results for me - from local to world levels - several of these events have exceeded 1,000 players, and many of them had very substantial prizing. I know something about this. So does the awesome staff and substantial development team - who all prefer the highest standards of tournament integrity.

We agree that the vast majority of game stores and tournament organizers are exemplary and many are quite knowledgeable about tournament integrity and operations - but are they all? Is every employee at every store? Is every volunteer organizer? When the quality of the tournament and the integrity of the game are enforced by the software so that everyone knows that the event will be fair, even at a store they have never visited, how is that a bad thing? Why do you want software that allows abuse and shenanigans?

There are backups taken for every action you make and they are kept separate for every major step - and they are quick Load button click away - how can this, plus the ability to change prior round results (within reason) not give you an adequate safety net in case you screw up that badly?

Yes - I admit, there is much to be done - but we are only on release 1.1 and for only the first update of the first release, I think that we can be proud of our debut.

Jeff Brower   
GEM Client Lead

I am running tournaments using GEM right now and things are going well. I have an upcoming event that will mimic the vault tour format of 3 deck survival. Is there a way or will there be a way to scan 3 decks into a user for a survival format? Thanks.

On 4/14/2019 at 10:36 PM, OldAmber said:

Glad that GEM is working so well for you! The next release is even better!

I am probably going to blow your mind right now. I did that on purpose.

Here's the thing, the tournament needs to be frozen when you start. At that moment we have to set the number of rounds, the presence of a top cut and the number of players that the top cut will contain. We are, in effect, creating a contract with the players for what their tournament will look like. They know that the number of wins they need, the number of rounds they will play, the strength of schedule and the extended strength of schedule will all be consistent round to round. We use these elements to fairly pair every round and to select the players that make it into top cut. If we change all of these things from round to round as players are added we change the fairness over and over as people get added to the event. And what of drops? If we are increasing rounds when people add, do we reduce the rounds when people drop? Or are DQ'ed? Does top cut disappear? Double in size? Both? How many players might have to drop and go home or to work if late players add to the number of rounds, especially in best of 3? Is is OK to have someone add in the very last round and add more rounds (and potentially hours of play) that no one expected? Where do you draw the line?

The problem is that this approach violates one fundamental rule and another vital principle. The fundamental rule is Thou shalt not infuriate the customer. This occurs when an expected behavior does not happen. And the vital principle is Thou should not reinvent the wheel without a vital reason for doing so.

I appreciate the desire to provide a consistent and fair tournament experience. However, if it is done in a way that frustrates the organizers or the players, the need for a consistent and fair tournament experience vanishes, as there will no longer be any tournaments run. So, from the experience of someone who has had experience in running tournaments in various games (chess, bridge, Magic) over a long time (first bridge event was 1988, others over that time); let me give you the basic expectations of the situations you presented above.

It is considered good customer service to clearly state the number of rounds and a cut by the end of the first round. It is expected that changes may occur during that round, but once those are finalized, there is no need for further adjustment. People drop all the time, especially in Magic events; the format does not change from that established by the end of the first round. Players are not added as a general rule, but when they are, it is under very controlled circumstances:

• A player who paid for the event but somehow didn't get registered must be added.
• A player who arrives very close to the start time of the first round may be added at the organizer's discretion. This is especially useful if there were an odd number of people to begin with, and adding the players means there is no bye.
• Players who arrive late enough in the first round to compromise their ability to complete it should not be added under all but the most extreme of circumstances.
• Players who arrive after the first round are almost never added.

In all cases where players are added before the first round is complete, the expectation is that the rounds and cuts will reflect the tournament size as of the end of the first round, before drops.

Again, to be clear, drops, DQ's and other adjustments made after the end of the first round do not affect the number of rounds and the cut. But given the chaos of trying to create the event, it is considered good customer service to wait until the event is "finalized" during round 1 to give a definite round and cut announcement.

To address the what happens if adding a round or extending a cut would cause someone to need to drop, let me point out what I have found from experience:

• People who come in do so either to play and have fun or to try to win. If they are playing to have fun, they will stay as long as it is fun and drop when they need to regardless of the format. If they are playing to win, they have already budgeted out enough time to stay and win if they get that far. The only glitch I had was once at GenCon where the organizer added his 3 kids into an event and didn't tell the judges making the announcements, so the event was booked for one round more than what was announced, and it wasn't noticed until the players were expecting standings (Magic events tend to post standings 2 rounds before the cut to give people the chance to plan their last 2 rounds accordingly) and were then told by the judge running the software that the event was one round longer than "expected". This led to a scramble to explain to the players that there was an "extra" round.
• A judge who is aware of just how close to the borderline the event is can adjust a pre-first round announcement to cover this: "Players, we have 8 people right now, but there is a possibility of another player or two showing up real soon. If that happens, we will go to 4 rounds, and we will let you know before the start of the second round."

On 4/14/2019 at 10:36 PM, OldAmber said:

That may not be your only surprise. I left other things out on purpose too.

You see, the aspiration of great tournament software, in my opinion, should be to guarantee a flat and level playing field for fair play - with no surprises and a predictable game environment no matter where a player plays on the planet - I seek the highest in tournament integrity and consistency. Note that you also do not see manual pairings in GEM, because even if it never occurs, any player with a bad matchup might wonder if their pairing was arranged on purpose (or wonder why the Orgainizer's child or friend got such a great matchup that same round). You will not see the ability to re-pair over and over and over until the operator sees the pairing they like for the same reason -- if anyone thinks for a moment that the Tournament Organizer (or GEM Operator) can manipulate any pairings or results, tournament integrity itself becomes questioned everywhere. Not on my watch!

While I appreciate your concern, there are certain adjustments that must be made to maintain tournament integrity, and failing to allow for them is a greater injustice.

The repairing to insure a matchup favorable to the organizer (or their friends and family) is minimal compared to the repairing to correct misentered results. Whether it's the players who marked the wrong winner or the scorekeeper clicking the wrong player (or deck), the essence of a Swiss event is that players play opponents with equal records whenever possible. Suppose I, as a player, know that I am undefeated going into the last round of Swiss, and my nemesis, whose deck is especially good against mine, is also undefeated. What stops me from "accidentally" recording my last match as a loss, knowing that my opponent (who may have the tools necessary to defeat my nemesis) will end up facing him in the last round? If I win, and my nemesis loses, I can "discover" that there was a mistake and have it corrected so I win without playing the correct player. Maybe my penultimate round opponent realizes the mistake when the pairings are posted, but since you can't correct a match pairing once made, they're out of luck (and paired against a better player than they should be). This situation is more common (and can happen in more than just the top brackets) than organizer shenanigans, and is much more visible (and frustrating) when it can't be corrected.

On 4/14/2019 at 10:36 PM, OldAmber said:

I guess what I am saying is this: Some of the things that we might be used to seeing in other game software may never be a part of GEM because I want GEM to be the gold standard of consistent, predictable and fair tournament software - powerful, yet deceptively simple to use.

Make sense? I hope so, and I hope you agree. Do me a favor though -- keep holding my foot to the fire and making those suggestions for improvements. The community is my best resource! Thanks also for the opportunity for me to climb up on my soapbox and make a speech as a response. I want everyone to understand why GEM is what it is and why we can all be proud of the game and the tools that we use to run it.

Jeff Brower   
GEM Client Lead

By all means, continue to make the GEM as good as possible. But please hearken to the counsel of advanced organizers who have seen things from other games and learn to prioritize what people need, even if it isn't what you think they need (or actively think they don't need). There's a reason that MRE's contain candy such as Skittles or M&M's; the troops that are taking fire need that extra boost. 😄

6 hours ago, Duncafelic said:

I am running tournaments using GEM right now and things are going well. I have an upcoming event that will mimic the vault tour format of 3 deck survival. Is there a way or will there be a way to scan 3 decks into a user for a survival format? Thanks.

Awesome! Yup! 3 Deck Survival in 3 different game variants!

Here is the thing -- the GEM Client that we use in the Vault Tour (and in all our premier events) is the exact same GEM Client that you will have in the stores. Yes, this time out we have a version ahead of you because we tested some spectacular stuff before we release it in the wild, but once we have those new items ready, the next release will have everything you saw in the Vault Tour (plus some).

Jeff Brower   
GEM Client Lead

Quote

It is considered good customer service to clearly state the number of rounds and a cut by the end of the first round.

Yes and no. Let's be clear - every game has its official rules and in every official game the number of rounds are set before the first round is played. You and others bring up MTG and in section 10.2 of their official rules it plainly says "The number of rounds should be announced at or before the beginning of the first round; once announced, it cannot be changed.". Pokemon has the same rule. More importantly to the conversation, KeyForge has this same rule. In the KeyForge Organized Play Rules on page 7 you will find "The organizer must announce the number and type(s) of rounds and what size any progression cuts will be before the start of the tournament." The reason is that it gives the same fairness to every player registered.

As a retail location, you can run the non-sanctioned and non-official games (Casual in GEM terms) with your own flavor and variations, but sanctioned play must be consistent and follow the sanctioning body's rules. Even though a retailer may wish to have different accommodations for late players, as the sanctioning body we have rules and we code them into our software.

Quote

• A player who paid for the event but somehow didn't get registered must be added
• A player who arrives very close to the start time of the first round may be added at the organizer's discretion. This is especially useful if there were an odd number of people to begin with, and adding the players means there is no bye.
• Players who arrive late enough in the first round to compromise their ability to complete it should not be added under all but the most extreme of circumstances.
• Players who arrive after the first round are almost never added.

All of this is not only already in the GEM Client, but GEM also uses the rules to automatically re-pair the round if needed, add the player as a Bye with a win, add the player as a Bye with a forced loss, or pair the late player with an existing Bye so that they can both play. I think that is a LOT of flexibility for the Organizer. If pairings are already advertised and players are seated, the re-pair is not automatic and the Organizer gets to choose to re-pair - just not over and over to get a desired pairing or manually pair specific players arbitrarily. If the Organizer chooses to enter a late player, the Organizer gets every legal option - but for any rounds where the player where the was absent, losses are automatically awarded. If a player wants to enter after a round starts playing and the Organizer decides to allow that player to enter, the Organizer gets all of the legal options at that point and the player is paired for the next round. GEM actually already gives the organizer more options than you listed above.

Quote

But given the chaos of trying to create the event, it is considered good customer service to wait until the event is "finalized" during round 1 to give a definite round and cut announcement.

I have run an incredible number of sanctioned events in card and video games from 8 players to over 1,000 players and I have never once changed the number of rounds after the play has started. Even setting the sanctioning body rules aside, when the rounds are timed, play has begun, and tiebreakers include mathematics for the number of rounds played, round modification can cause tournament integrity issues - which is why every major game with an Organized Play component has this same rule for their official sanctioned events.

Quote

... the organizer added his 3 kids into an event and didn't tell the judges making the announcements, so the event was booked for one round more than what was announced, and it wasn't noticed until the players were expecting standings.

That makes my other point in terms of the fairness of having a predictable event. I have noticed that no matter the size of the event, only about half of the players are listening to the announcements. Chances are, even had the judge known, there would have been several players who would still have been surprised.

Quote

The repairing to insure a matchup favorable to the organizer (or their friends and family) is minimal compared to the repairing to correct misentered results. Whether it's the players who marked the wrong winner or the scorekeeper clicking the wrong player (or deck), the essence of a Swiss event is that players play opponents with equal records whenever possible.

Yup. And that is why GEM allows you to go back to a previous round and change the outcome. Click the prior round, click Reset, click the correct winner. Done. If the correction affects the current pairing, the round is automatically repaired. Literally 3 clicks and the miss-entered result is fixed and the pairings adjusted.

Quote

By all means, continue to make the GEM as good as possible. But please hearken to the counsel of advanced organizers who have seen things from other games and learn to prioritize what people need, even if it isn't what you think they need (or actively think they don't need). There's a reason that MRE's contain candy such as Skittles or M&M's; the troops that are taking fire need that extra boost. 😄

Thanks - I plan to make GEM the envy of all other games. But please understand that I am an advanced organizer too. Beyond that, as the sanctioning body, we have rules for our game which we must code into the software tasked with insuring our rules are followed. While we are not attempting to be a retail store game app (which might help a retailer avoid or nudge some of the rules that are not convenient for customer service in a retail environment), we do allow for a whole set of Casual games (which are not allocated and do give somewhat more flexibility).

For our Organized Play (officially sanctioned events), we have extensively considered, established, and published a set of Official Rules, just like every other sanctioning body for every other game. We use the exact same software at our own premier events (like the Vault Tour) which we give to retailers for their events, so it must enforce the rules we set which are focused on ensuring ethics, fairness and tournament integrity. We award allocations to retail stores whom we trust to run events according to those published rules and we give them the GEM Client to make staying within those rules a little easier.

All that said, I hope you have also seen that I have taken the needs I have experienced at my FLGS, large Cons, and giant premier events and rolled them into the rules document to create a system that satisfies your hunger and gives you that sweet tasty treat that you desire. Everything above you said GEM should do, it does, and more - and if you load the 1.3 release in a couple of weeks I think you will be amazed at how much more of a GEM it is!

Thanks for taking the time and thought to write your post. I think it is important that you cared enough to bring your thoughts forward, make suggestions, and give us the opportunity to share our perspective and communicate with the community. I hope I have made this understandable and given you even more confidence in GEM.

Jeff Brower   
GEM Client Lead

18 hours ago, OldAmber said:

Yes and no. Let's be clear - every game has its official rules and in every official game the number of rounds are set before the first round is played. You and others bring up MTG and in section 10.2 of their official rules it plainly says "The number of rounds should be announced at or before the beginning of the first round; once announced, it cannot be changed.". Pokemon has the same rule. More importantly to the conversation, KeyForge has this same rule. In the KeyForge Organized Play Rules on page 7 you will find "The organizer must announce the number and type(s) of rounds and what size any progression cuts will be before the start of the tournament." The reason is that it gives the same fairness to every player registered.

I understand the basic principle of this, and in a perfect world, I would be completely on board with it. I just have had to deal with an imperfect world, as evidenced by the "let's add 3 players at the end, and only tell the scorekeeper so that the computer sets the number of rounds differently from what was just announced" debacle I mentioned. If the rule is "once announced, it cannot be changed", then the computer needs to be adjusted; if the computer's round calculation can't be adjusted once the first round begins, the rule can't be followed and must bend to the computer's calculation.

There is one saving grace here that we don't need to adhere to the Magic expectation that every player with no more than one loss must make the cut. Whether you created the formula with that in mind or not, by stating that the rules are as they are you have created a situation where the expectation may not be met, and any such instance is "unlucky" on someone's part.

Quote

All of this is not only already in the GEM Client, but GEM also uses the rules to automatically re-pair the round if needed, add the player as a Bye with a win, add the player as a Bye with a forced loss, or pair the late player with an existing Bye so that they can both play. I think that is a LOT of flexibility for the Organizer. If pairings are already advertised and players are seated, the re-pair is not automatic and the Organizer gets to choose to re-pair - just not over and over to get a desired pairing or manually pair specific players arbitrarily. If the Organizer chooses to enter a late player, the Organizer gets every legal option - but for any rounds where the player where the was absent, losses are automatically awarded. If a player wants to enter after a round starts playing and the Organizer decides to allow that player to enter, the Organizer gets all of the legal options at that point and the player is paired for the next round. GEM actually already gives the organizer more options than you listed above.

That is good. I am working with a store to start Chainbound next month, and until I can actually look at the software, I have to operate on what's reported here. From an outsider's perspective, it sounded much worse than what you're portraying here. What I heard was:

• Can't change match pairings
• Can't set match pairings (useful for recreating an event after it happens so it's in the right format)
• Can't adjust number of rounds once set
• Et cetera

Now that I know that some of these are addressed, I can use my talents to solve some problems, although some things will still be a problem (which I will get to once I have personal experience with the software).

Quote

I have run an incredible number of sanctioned events in card and video games from 8 players to over 1,000 players and I have never once changed the number of rounds after the play has started. Even setting the sanctioning body rules aside, when the rounds are timed, play has begun, and tiebreakers include mathematics for the number of rounds played, round modification can cause tournament integrity issues - which is why every major game with an Organized Play component has this same rule for their official sanctioned events.

I wouldn't normally have even considered it, but I had that one event where that very thing happened. And given the circumstances, I don't think there was a way to prevent it. That's why I generally make sure there's a "finalizing period" during the first round where we confirm everything; I don't like getting burned the same way twice.

Quote

That makes my other point in terms of the fairness of having a predictable event. I have noticed that no matter the size of the event, only about half of the players are listening to the announcements. Chances are, even had the judge known, there would have been several players who would still have been surprised.

It's not just that. The people most surprised were the ones who were listening to the announcements. The announcement was, "We have 64 players at this event," and those who are familiar with tournament structure know what that means. When the computer registered 67 instead of 64, and given the large number of tables and events at GenCon, the event didn't start at Table 1, it was easy for everyone to miss the "extra match" that happened for the first 2-3 rounds.

19 hours ago, OldAmber said:

All that said, I hope you have also seen that I have taken the needs I have experienced at my FLGS, large Cons, and giant premier events and rolled them into the rules document to create a system that satisfies your hunger and gives you that sweet tasty treat that you desire. Everything above you said GEM should do, it does, and more - and if you load the 1.3 release in a couple of weeks I think you will be amazed at how much more of a GEM it is!  

I fully expect it will be better. And when I get a chance to use it live, I will see what is available. What I am looking at (from my current view as a future user and not a current one) is the glitches that appear here and trying to extrapolate what I need to prepare for. With any luck, it won't be as frustrating as I expected.

On 4/15/2019 at 11:03 AM, OldAmber said:

We agree that the vast majority of game stores and tournament organizers are exemplary and many are quite knowledgeable about tournament integrity and operations - but are they all? Is every employee at every store? Is every volunteer organizer? When the quality of the tournament and the integrity of the game are enforced by the software so that everyone knows that the event will be fair, even at a store they have never visited, how is that a bad thing?

That is not the job of the software. That is the job of the TO. It is the job of the software to be well organized, easy to use, and adaptable to every real world situation.

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Why do you want software that allows abuse and shenanigans?

I want software that allows me to run a real world tournament with real world players tossing real world monkey wrenches into the event structure. I want abuse and shenanigans to be dealt with by either a sanctioned judge program or a body at FFG responding to negative feedback and responding with penalties to the store's ability to run or sell FFG products. As I said above, if a store is running dirty events, the players will find out, and they will be wrathful.

WotC's WER software is FAR from a gold standard (although the replacement is looking pretty great). But I've almost never had a problem dealing with issues or fixing a problem. And despite legal issues with the employment status of judges, my local judges are authorized are able to issue official punishments to players and let WotC know about poor practices at venues. The software allows me to do the job. The people ensure it is done with integrity.

I’d say preventing abuse by making it impossible in the software is better than sanctions after the fact.

You don’t leave your front door open when you’re away and say we’ve got police to take care of the offenders if my stuff gets stolen, no, you lock your house and make it harder to do in the first place.

4 hours ago, Palpster said:

I’d say preventing abuse by making it impossible in the software is better than sanctions after the fact.

You don’t leave your front door open when you’re away and say we’ve got police to take care of the offenders if my stuff gets stolen, no, you lock your house and make it harder to do in the first place.

This. So much this. You can't un-ring a bell. Thanks for the post.

Jeff Brower   
GEM Client Lead

4 hours ago, Palpster said:

I’d say preventing abuse by making it impossible in the software is better than sanctions after the fact.

You don’t leave your front door open when you’re away and say we’ve got police to take care of the offenders if my stuff gets stolen, no, you lock your house and make it harder to do in the first place.

True, but that doesn't mean I prefer a house with no doors, just so I can be assured I don't have people breaking in. I want a house with a strong lock, but one that I can disable with the key when the time is right. And I certainly don't want a key that I can't duplicate and offer to my friends or family.

The net effect of a lock isn't to keep dishonest people out; it's to keep honest people honest. The truly dishonest ones will find a way around even the best lock, but those who are flirting with dishonesty but are otherwise honest will be reminded by the barrier that a lock poses and back away.

Hi, I started a chainbound event at my store and uploaded the results using GEM,

But my players are telling me that their result are not showing on their app.

Can someone help me with this?

Hi,

I have a question.

I already registered via GEM Portal and put my stores location, however it not appear in Store Locator and I also cannot choose Chainbound 2019 Event.

Please help!

Regards.

8 hours ago, castle8id said:

Hi,

I have a question.

I already registered via GEM Portal and put my stores location, however it not appear in Store Locator and I also cannot choose Chainbound 2019 Event.

Please help!

Regards.

Has the store been allocated chainbound events by their Asmodee rep yet?

Hi!

I created an event for Chainbound but some of my players have came forward and told me there is no chains update on their deck

How do I know if their deck has chains?

Thanks

On 4/16/2019 at 7:05 PM, OldAmber said:

Awesome! Yup! 3 Deck Survival in 3 different game variants!

Here is the thing -- the GEM Client that we use in the Vault Tour (and in all our premier events) is the exact same GEM Client that you will have in the stores. Yes, this time out we have a version ahead of you because we tested some spectacular stuff before we release it in the wild, but once we have those new items ready, the next release will have everything you saw in the Vault Tour (plus some).

Jeff Brower   
GEM Client Lead

Any hint on when the next update for GEM will be? I would love to run a Survival Tournament at my store.

13 hours ago, Game Kastle said:

Any hint on when the next update for GEM will be? I would love to run a Survival Tournament at my store.

I hate to keep saying soon.... but soon. Like really truly soon. The Client has passed all the smoke tests, but the Client is only one part of the Suite. Oops, did I say that out loud?

Jeff Brower   
GEM Client Lead

All right. I finally got a chance to run something on GEM. And while the actual event went well enough, there were a few hiccups that were bothering me for a while.

The first thing was that when the program came up, it wasn't in full screen mode. That meant that the Login Button (which you need to click to access your event) isn't visible (and is so far away from the main body of text that it doesn't appear in scroll up). Fortunately, the store manager (I'm just the trained monkey they bring in to run the events) knew about going to full screen to find and use the Login button.

The next annoyance happened after I found the event. Even with full screen, there are two nearby buttons begging to be clicked on, and neither one of them is correct if you are simply looking to get into the event that has already been created but not yet started. It took a while to guess that I was missing something, scroll down, and find this "Next" button that I hadn't tried yet. That one is correct, but I wouldn't have guessed it.

The final annoyance was getting the players and decks registered. I understand having the "Scan QR Code" button to start the process, but having to do that between every player entry gets annoying, especially if you're experiencing a rush of players coming to the registration table at once. Of course, if you move away from the registration screen, requiring the "Scan QR Code" button makes sense to confirm that you are returning to the Add Player mode, but at a bigger event, I would like the software to assume I'm adding another player after the previous one is entered unless I give indication otherwise, such as by clicking "Confirm" to end registration or move to another screen. The time lost by clicking "Scan QR Code" repeatedly can add up over the course of several registrations.

Overall, I rate this iteration a B+. It does its job effectively, but the learning curve is steeper than it needed to be.