Collectively, I think the playerbase learned a lot and got a lot of data. I've got quite some feedback to provide, enough that I think it will be better if I split each topic of discussion into a different comment. For my first comment I'm going to address the issue of flow/pacing.
It felt like that in this tournament the battles were too rushed and came too quickly. The consequences of this were in my opinion, quite significant. Multiple players ended up forgetting to do things and went on to the next stage before they should/could have, while other players who were slower to respond and complete their gameplay activities really fell off the pace.
Assuming that the next tournament follows a similar structure, I'm going to suggest that the solution to this would be to post no more than one battle per day. That will allow slower players to not fall too far behind too quickly, and it will also give you and anyone else auditing the time to double-check and make sure that no player is rushing into the next stage before they should (as well as risk potential future winnings in the process for invalid gameplay).
Also, there needs to be a more organized way to see who has progressed to where. To address this, I'd like to suggest a new rule be added that requires a player who is successful in battle to make a comment stating that they are leaving the current stage before they move on to the next. Doing this will also address the cross-stage loophole that I found and tried to use (albeit in the end all it really did was allow bunny fluff to advance one more stage). And just in case, you might as well add an official rule that combat on a particular stage (PvP or PvNPC) can only occur between those players and NPCs who are actually still there.
I think that's about it on the topic of flow/pacing. My next comment will deal with loot.
Sweet some good ideas there, and yeah definitely the posts came a bit to quick. It also made it hard for me to help people...Definately some way of tracking where people are at...hmmnn let me think a bit, certainly people could self declare, but i wonder if there is a cool way..
At the time I was thinking how will I keep the campaign map upto date as once 7 days are passed, I can't update it anymore...Ideally need some way to deal with that..I guess I could split the map up over two posts OR have less stages, either way means a re-design of the map (which I was hoping I didn't have to do - trying to have a generic repeatable campaign map), mainly as if i need a new one have to get someone talented to create for us..and is allot of hard work I'm sure..Some thought provoking ideas & great feedback - keep them coming :)
Hmmmm... in that case, would it be sufficient to do this... ?
Day 1 - stages 1 and 2
Day 2 - stage 3
Day 3 - stage 4
Day 4 - stage 5
Day 5 - stage 6 and final boss
(I'm getting sleepy now so no further feedback from me for a bit. I will get that loot feedback posted within the next 24 hours though.)
No worries, yeah past my bed time also....i will think on also and have a chat to artist, maybe splitting up over 2 not worse thing ever or perhaps an entire rethink when taking into account tracking people....will sleep on mate :)